Traditionally society wore their clothes and then either threw them away or sold their ‘designer’ and ‘vintage’ threads to specialist stores.

However with a recession looming, everyone has had to become a little bit more fashion savvy. Quality rather that fast/cheap/third world fashion and selling the good stuff on. Most of us have jobs/lives and although there is a pretty penny to be had on eBay, who has the time to get to the post office? Step in these stores, as featured in The London Paper, undercutting the 60% commission charges for selling your clothes and making your purchasing feel a little bit more refined than eBay. You’ll also make some cash, thus giving more money to spend, boosting the economy. Win, win!

They accept high street, designer and even unwanted vintage, and thanks to the stores’ central location, you can expect your stuff to get snapped up fast.

Best of all, Bang Bang buys your stuff up front – so you get the cash immediately rather than waiting for them to shift your style mistakes.

You get only 30 per cent of what they hope to sell it for, but it’s the only place we know that will sell on your cheapie high-street clothes.
21 Goodge St, W1, 020 7631 4191, 9 Berwick St, W1
Commission taken 70%

The Closet Bureau

How come nobody thought of this before? The Closet Bureau is a chi-chi new website that takes designer fashion and sells it for you on eBay.

Founder Sophia Greene (a fashion PR, naturellement) was inspired by her own mama. “Because they didn’t know how to use eBay, my mother and her friends would take their clothes to dress agencies, on a monthly basis, where they were charged up to 60 per cent commission for selling the clothes and got little  back,” says Greene. “We charge 35 per cent and take care of everything from cleaning to photography and shipping.”

Besides shouldering the admin, Greene knows all the ­insider eBay tricks. In fact, this canny clothes horse once sold a pair of Louboutins she bought for £200 at a sample sale for £1,200 . We’ll have a bit of that.
www.theclosetbureau.com, FREE collection from Zones 1-2
Commission taken 35%

Writen about in Vogue here

Seconda Mano
Don’t be confused when you arrive at ­Seconda Mano on Upper Street. The ground floor is a hairdresser, but below stairs you’ll find a cache of second-hand designer ­treasures (well, we say second-hand, but most of it is unworn).

Seconda Mano will sell your unwanted clobber at 50 per cent commission. It sounds like a lot, but their prices are quite high so if they sell your stuff you can still make a tidy profit.

They take clothes, jeans, shoes and accessories, but everything must be in mint condition, preferably with a designer label attached. In other words, that ill-advised Topshop playsuit need not apply.
53 Upper Street, 020 7359 5284
Commission taken 50%