Hi, this is Imran Ahmed founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion. Welcome to the

Bof podcast. It's Friday, March 5th. For some time now, big luxury brands, including Chanel,

Gucci, and Louis Vuitton, have been reticent about the luxury resale sector,

steering clear of the growing market for second-hand goods.

But in recent months, the cold relationship has begun to thaw somewhat, as more fashion brands begin to experiment with resale,

and strike partnerships with key resale players like the Real Reel

and Vestier Collective. But this week, things in the luxury resale sector took a really big step forward.

Good morning business. French steak.

Paris-based luxury resale startup Vestier Collective announced that it had raised a new 178 million euro financing round,

led by Tiger Global and Caring, one of the largest luxury groups in the industry and owners of

Gucci, San Laurent, Balenciaga, and Alexander McQueen, among others.

Though Caring's new stake ultimately amounts to only a 5% stake in Vestier Collective,

as our Paris-based correspondent Robert Williams reported in his B-O-F professional analysis on the transaction,

it is the strongest signal yet that the luxury sector is finally realizing it has little choice

but to engage with secondhand marketplaces that are selling their

goods. I spoke to Vest Your Collective CEO Max Bittner to get his take on what has changed over the last

year that has motivated luxury industry leaders like caring to finally dip their toes into the

fast-growing resale market. I think it's not just caring. I think it's the old industry has made a

dramatic shift over the last six to 12 months in being much more open towards secondhand. I think it's

very important to clarify that. If I look at the last two years, since I joined the conversations

we were having two years ago, I have nothing to do with the conversations we had even last week

before the announcement of the deal and the

...