If you looked closely at the Maccapani presentation at Milan Fashion Week on September 19, you may have noticed something unusual. The models, styled by the brand’s designer, Margherita Missoni, wore not just clothes from the brand’s new collection, but also accessories from other brands including Roberto Cavalli and Murano.
The pieces were sourced by Missoni from eBay, which co-sponsored the show as part of a vintage-focused collaboration with Maccapani. Simultaneously, Maccapani launched a new digital storefront called MaccaFinds on both the brand’s website and on eBay, selling vintage pieces curated by Missoni. They include the rhinestone René Caovilla sandals and the Murano beaded necklaces worn at the show.
Maccapani is a new brand, only a year old, but Missoni herself has a pedigree in the business. Her family founded the fashion brand Missoni and she was the creative director of its lower-priced M Missoni line until she left to found Maccapani. Her new brand has already attracted interest from the industry, including an investment from Marco Bizzari, the former Gucci head who now runs an investment firm called Nessifashion.
A lover of vintage and pre-owned fashion in her personal life, Missoni said it was natural for her to combine her new collection with vintage clothes. According to Missoni, secondhand fashion is a necessary part of the fashion landscape. If everyone only bought and wore new clothes, everyone would dress the same.
“Since the very first collection, I’ve been styling Maccapani with vintage accessories, to communicate the idea of pieces that aim to complete in an existing wardrobe, rather than a seasonal full look,” Missoni said. “It’s a dialog between the brand and the wearer versus a diktat from the fashion house. Pre-loved items add individuality, while Maccapani grounds them in today. The two enhance each other.”
While it’s now common for fashion brands to include some sort of resale element on their online stores, they tend to focus solely on pre-owned versions of their own products. Maccapani is taking a different approach, incorporating the brand-agnostic style of big resale platforms like eBay.
Maccapani’s eBay partnership comes amid a warming of relations between mainstream fashion brands and their counterparts in secondhand fashion. EBay has been a leader of this charge, introducing more luxury and fashion-forward categories like Swiss watches and authenticated handbags. It’s also worked directly with brands like Badgley Mischka, Ernst Benz, Konstantin Chaykin and Perrelet, all of whom were early adopters of eBay’s “Certified by Brand” program that launched last year.
EBay has been particularly active at this season’s fashion month across the different cities, with a presence at both New York Fashion Week and London Fashion Week. At NYFW, it hosted a runway show of entirely pre-owned fashion pieces — it was co-hosted with the CFDA and curated by model and influencer Wisdom Kaye. In London, it held a similar show, co-hosted by the British Fashion Council and curated by eBay stylist Amy Bannerman. The clothes were all made shoppable on eBay shortly after each show. Last fashion month, in February-March, eBay took part in a partnership with Balenciaga, furnishing the brand’s show with vintage accessories sourced from eBay. EBay’s revenue was up 2% year-over-year in its most recent earnings report.
Kirsty Keoghan, eBay’s gm of fashion, connected the platform’s push into fashion to consumers’ increased desire for sustainability.
“EBay has been a driving force in promoting more sustainable fashion,” she said. “We’re showing up on fashion’s biggest stage and demonstrating that authentic designer fashion doesn’t have to be out of reach.”
But for Missoni, the other big element driving the desire for resale is a need for individuality and the ease with which resale allows consumers to accessorize.
“We make versatile pieces that can be dressed up or down by switching accessories, which then become central. That led us to the idea of starting to sell them, which then led us to approach eBay,” she said. “Time is the real luxury of today, because researching and curating take time.”
