At first glance, The Way We Wore could be mistaken for an ordinary Los Angeles secondhand store with a warehouse vibe. Huge windows cast warm light onto cement floors and racks hung with an eclectic mix of clothing and accessories. But a closer look reveals that it is more like a museum of fashion history. Some items date back to the early 1900s. There’s a rack of Chanel. Another of Pucci. Orange and red Bakelite jewelry fills a shelf in a glass case. Doris Raymond, a longtime leader in the world of high-end vintage fashion, carefully curates every item in the showroom.
After 45 years in the vintage business, Raymond is suddenly right at the forefront of fashion. The resale market is growing fast, driven in large part by younger shoppers. Nearly half of Gen Z and millennials say they search for secondhand or used items more often than they used to, compared with roughly a quarter of boomers, according to Mastercard’s December 2025 Consumer Collective Financial Sentiment survey.
And an upcoming analysis by the Mastercard Economics Institute shows Finland, France and the U.S. leading the way, with circular spending accounting for 10.5% of clothing store spending in Finland, with resale the vast majority.
Part of the appeal is that reusing items is better for the environment, and younger generations say they’re willing to pay more for goods that align with their values. Those sustainability concerns, along with tariff-related price increases on imported goods like fast fashion, will likely feed the circular economy trend.
“We’re watching circular spending move from the margins to the mainstream,” says Ellen Jackowski, chief sustainability officer at Mastercard. “It’s not a fad; it’s economics. When value meets values, everybody wins: consumers, merchants, and the planet.”
Secondhand fashion is now a $256 billion global business on track to reach $367 billion by 2029. Raymond’s corner of the market, luxury resale, which includes a handful of e-commerce giants, made up 27% of online luxury apparel spending in 2024, while mass-market resale climbed to 5.4% in 2025, according to the Mastercard Economics Institute’s 2025 report on fashion and the circular economy. And in Los Angeles, where Raymond is based, circular fashion makes up 7% of online apparel spending, the report says.
“I’m an accidental sustainable person,” Raymond says with a laugh while taking me on a tour of her appointment-only showroom. She has always been drawn to older clothes that were made with a level of care and quality that fast fashion lacks. “Why throw away money on something that’s not made to last, even if it’s four times the price? If you buy a classic, something that’s not trendy, it’ll be with you for a long time.”
