Fresh off the Endless Runway event at London Fashion Week, fashion stylist and eBay’s preloved fashion director Amy Bannerman shares her essential tips for finding the best preloved designer buys …
For pre-loved obsessive Amy Bannerman, choosing circular fashion in an industry fixated on newness has never made her feel like an outlier. Nor did it feel like a secret weapon. It was simply gut instinct. “It wasn’t an intentional thing. It just came from not wanting to be the same, not having that same dress [as everyone else]. If you paid me to wear that dress, I probably wouldn’t,” she laughs. Now the pre-loved style director at eBay, Bannerman cut her teeth as a fashion stylist at prestige titles such as ELLE, InStyle and Cosmopolitan. “When I was working in magazines, I was earning an insanely bad salary and pretty much unable to eat and, you know, everyone’s buying Chanel. I would go to the shows and search on eBay afterwards. If there were, say, lamé blouses on the runway, I knew there would be some from the 1980s. I’d like the styling of it, but I’d always buy it secondhand,” she explains.
Bannerman has always sourced her wardrobe from charity shops, markets or on eBay. Long before it was cool, she admits. She clearly remembers the moment where it all came together for her. “When I was about 12, my cousin, who was very cool, gave me a bag of stuff she didn’t want anymore, which included some Levi’s and a ribbed navy scoop neck T-shirt that she’d, like, worn to death. I remember them so vividly, especially the black Levi’s 501s. I lived in the countryside, I just didn’t know anything about anything, and I thought, ‘Whoa. This is it. Yeah, I’ve made it.’ The fact that they had been hers made them even cooler,” she says. A prelude to the influencer market? Perhaps. But Bannerman has always been a bit ahead of her time.
Fresh off styling eBay’s Endless Runway event at London Fashion Week, a catwalk show using only pre-loved clothing from the online marketplace, Bannerman believes wearing secondhand clothes is no longer stigmatised in the fashion world. A key turning point for this was when eBay assumed sponsorship of reality dating show Love Island from fast fashion brand I Saw It First in 2022. Onsite searches for ‘pre-loved fashion’ increased by more than 1,400 percent, according to eBay. “When we started on Love Island, there was a real stigma around pre-loved … now I think that stigma has fallen to fast fashion,” Bannerman, who styled the contestants as part of this pre-loved fashion partnership, says. “No-one proudly says their top is from Shein.” Speaking of, the show included a pre-loved T-shirt from an old Topshop x Meadham Kirchhoff collaboration. Bannerman, who was originally a style advisor for Topshop, agrees with the recent online discourse surrounding the British high street giant’s comeback fashion show. “They should have come back by using pre-loved pieces, reworked. They should have done curve-sizing … it’s completely non-size-inclusive. Everything’s made of polyester,” she says.
The Endless Runway event, which coincided with the SS26 shows at London Fashion Week, was the opposite end of the scale. “The predominant thing was using British designers, as well as size inclusion, because that’s something that’s important to me,” she says. It was also an ode to a magical summer wardrobe. Think: beachy ginghams, statement summer dresses and boho sandals. The aesthetic was a just-back-from-the-market, shopping for souvenirs vibe. There were also a lot of shell trinkets and mother of pearl accents, likely inspired by Bannerman’s grade II home by the seaside in Hastings which she has been lovingly redecorating (follow @amybannermanstylist for pre-loved home inspiration). “One model had sea glass tied into his dreads,” she says.
What was her favourite look from the runway show? A Prada green dress worn by Irish model Lorna Foran was up there. However, most importantly, was affordability. “Not everything could be luxury because we’re in a cost of living crisis. It’s tone deaf to have exorbitant prices,” she says. “I think more people are finding that kind of out of reach, but still not wanting to compromise in their style,” she says. It’s true: the recent fashion shows in London and New York raised the point of how much fashion is leaning into the minimal-luxe ‘cool’ woman who totes €5,000 bags by The Row. But how many people actually know someone like her? Bannerman highlights the often underserved but very real fashion fan who avidly keeps abreast of designer key pieces and viral trends but scouts secondhand sites to get a more affordable, pre-loved version. “I always notice it in the summer with sandals, because sometimes I want to treat myself to a luxury buy and then I look and question, how are every pair of sandals at 800 pounds?” she says. “I love luxury brands, but I very rarely buy anything new,” she says.
What is Bannerman’s advice for finding good pre-loved buys? Firstly, set up alerts. Secondly, adjust your filters. “I always put the lowest filter as something a bit more expensive: say €50 if it’s a skirt, just to weed out fast fashion,” she advises. As for search terms, choose trend names rather than product names. “Y2K is a good one. If you’re looking for a handbag and you want an inexpensive bag, if you put in Y2K, you will find that Dior or Fendi shape,” she says. If you’re scared of pre-loved shopping, start with brands that you already have, so you will know your sizing. This works well with denim brands. “I love Agolde and Citizens of Humanity jeans, which are quite expensive, so I tend to shop for those,” she says. Lastly, shopping off season is key. September is a good time to search for sun dresses, sandals or the Holy Grail of The Row flip-flops (sans the €800 price tag or waiting list).
Buyer beware: it is a different way of shopping. It’s less prescriptive, and you need to be open to things that might surprise you. “It’s like with charity shop shopping, you can’t think, ‘Oh, today I’m going to find my perfect coat.’” But when it works, it works. “People talk about the dopamine hit of going into Zara but there’s nothing like finally tracking down the thing you’ve been looking for for years … that’s a next-level dopamine hit,” she says. Persist and you shall reap the benefits. See Bannerman who just snapped up a Simone Rocha satin-detail jumper at a fraction of the runway cost. It’s the perfect antidote to a relentless trend cycle which, in spite of going through the motions of sustainability, only seems to be getting shorter – nudging us towards a new ‘key look’ as soon as we’ve invested in another. “There’s enough stress in the world. No one wants to be told they’re doing it wrong on top of everything else,” Bannerman says.
Shop your preloved autumn capsule:
Dark brown Paddington patent leather satchel, Chloé, €305; www.ebay.ie.
Camel trench coat, Alexa Chung, €167; www.vestiairecollective.com.
Beige cashmere V-neck jumper, J Crew, €47; www.vestiairecollective.com.
White striped cashmere top, La Ligne, €120, at Cobbler’s Wardrobe.
Back mesh polka dot ballet flats, Dôen, €150; www.vinted.ie.
Brown Épure leather bucket bag, Longchamp, €199, at Designer Exchange.
Beige striped collarless blazer, Giorgio Armani, €280; www.farfetch.com.
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