Used Wedding Dresses: The Big Business of Secondhand Wedding Dresses

The "supply" part of this equation is obvious: If a bride isn't handing it down or finding a way to repurpose it for another special occasion, it's highly likely that her wedding dress will be confined to the back of her closet.

It gets trickier when you think about the "demand." The process of buying a wedding dress, as popular lore has it, is as much a rite of passage as a task on a to-do list. Brides have no shortage of options to consider before turning to resale: There are nationwide chains, boutique salons, and vintage stores, as well as a growing number of direct-to-consumer labels to suss through. Still, the stitch-perfect gown can get expensive. (According to The Knot's Real Weddings report, the average bride in the U.S. spends approximately $1,631 on her dress.) Buying something secondhand presents a much more affordable alternative, since most styles are sold between 50 and 90 percent off the original price.

Myah Genung, a 30-year-old in Los Angeles, chose a used wedding gown for that reason in 2016. "I knew I wouldn't be able to afford a full-price wedding dress, as my husband and I were paying for our entire wedding on our own and we didn't want to take on any debt in the process. I wanted a dress that I absolutely loved, but I also wanted to put more money toward things that would impact our guests' experience, like music, decor, and food," she says. A friend's recommendation led her to PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com, where she found the "exact" dress she had originally eyed in stores—a gown by Oleg Cassini.

"Norms are definitely changing, and weddings are being documented across social channels more than ever before," says Sasha Skoda, head of women's at TheRealReal. "With this rise, there seems to be less of an attachment to physical objects to remind people of these memories. Why not earn money back on your initial investment to put toward a future vacation or your next handbag purchase?"

It's not just budget-consciousness at play here: "Maybe the type of style or silhouette that resonates with you [as a bride] was more on trend last season, or a couple seasons past—by shopping resale, you really increase your options and can feel confident that you won't look like every other bride that year," Skoda adds.

There are also environmental benefits to shopping resale. Fashion has long been considered one of the most polluting industries globally; on average, consumers are buying 60 percent more clothing than they did in 2000 but are keeping items for half as long. Secondhand is often cited as the most sustainable way to shop because it doesn't introduce new product into an oversaturated market. It's rising in popularity too: ThredUp's 2019 Resale Report found that the secondhand clothing market overall will reach $51 billion in the next five years, with 64 percent of women reporting they are willing to shop secondhand. Pinterest named "sustainable clothing" as one of its top clothing trends for 2019, with searches for "sustainable clothing" increasing by 34 percent in the past year.