Preloved fashion is booming amid a cost of living squeeze and a rise in eco thinking. Once niche, the secondhand market is now on course to take 10% of global sales, while eBay has just axed fees for sellers of preloved garms.
In our Second Nature series, we unzip this growing trend and meet the preloved pioneers who are helping to send it mainstream. A million miles from its moth-eaten, austere reputation of yesteryear, they see preloved as stylish, expressive and fun.
For the final article in the series, we meet Nicole Akong: a fashion designer, maker, alteration expert and secondhand fashion influencer with a flair for embellishment, who was a finalist on the 2020 series of the BBC’s Great British Sewing Bee. During her childhood in Trinidad the choice of imported clothes was limited, so Akong grew up around dressmaking. She’s now based in London.
Nicole Akong
It took a long time for Nicole Akong to give herself permission to buy ready-made clothes again after appearing on the BBC’s Great British Sewing Bee. There was an expectation from members of the public that she would always be outfitted in self-made pieces. But after dipping her toe in charity shopping a couple of summers ago at the request of her then tween- aged daughter, who’d been joining friends on charity shopping trips and asked her mum if she’d accompany her, Akong found the perfect middle ground: transforming secondhand clothes.
“It felt like I was doing a wholesome thing because I’m supporting a charity but I’m also buying something that might otherwise go to landfill,” says Akong. “I started to see sewing patterns as quite restrictive, and making from scratch gave me decision fatigue. Now I change what I don’t like or elevate the garments in a way that feels more me. It’s fulfilling, I actually find it so much more enjoyable as a creative process.”
