The French company Back Market has been a household name in Europe for secondhand tech for close to a decade, and now it’s set its sights on growing in markets outside of its home country like the U.S. and the U.K.
And to do that, its turning to a new category: fashion. On December 5, at a party held in Manhattan, Back Market debuted a new collection of tech-inspired wearable accessories called F/W 2005, designed in collaboration with Canadian artist and designer Gab Bois. The collection, up for sale on Back Market’s website, uses electronics sourced from Back Market to create hair clips out of iPods, a belt buckle out of an old flip phone and a compact mirror out of a CD player.
Not only is the collection fashion-centric, but its marketing rollout was, too. There was a very fashion-feeling party that included a DJ set and open bar; plus, on the morning of the drop, celebrity and influencer Julia Fox posted several looks from the collection to her 1.7 million followers on Instagram.
Back Market CMO Joy Howard, who joined the company in March, said there’s a natural overlap between fashion and consumer tech, especially in the secondhand market.
“There’s a lot of energy behind secondhand goods in culture,” Howard said. “Creative people lead culture and fashion is creative. And that’s why circularity has taken off finally in apparel.”
Howard herself has a deep fashion background, having worked at companies including Converse and Patagonia. At the latter, she was vp of marketing and helped launch Patagonia’s influential Worn Wear resale program. She said she was inspired at the time by Patagonia Yvon Chouinard, who was a proponent of reusing products and extending their lifespan and embraced both secondhand fashion and older technology.
The Back Market team has other fashion connections, too: The company’s head of U.S. sellers, Karin Dillie, was director of business development at The RealReal and vp of partnerships, sales and success at fashion resale service company Recurate.
Last year, Back Market’s revenue grew 45%, to around $337 million, and it added 4.5 million new customers. It also raised over $1 billion dollars. Recently, Back Market’s U.S. expansion has been focused on New York. A recent subway campaign ad cheekily poked fun at Apple’s constant cycle of new devices, for example. Whether Back Market will continue with more fashion collaborations in the future will depend on the success and buzz generated by this one, Howard said.
Back Market’s fashion exploration is based on two trends, Howard said: the rise of circularity and the recent obsession with all things Y2K and retro. IPods, cassettes, flip phones and more devices have recently returned to the zeitgeist, doubling as both practical devices and fashion statements.
“One of the most cost-effective things you can do is participate in things that are already happening,” Howard said. “There’s been this surge of retro tech, the Y2K trend. I told my team that this is our wave to ride.”
