Everyone quotes discounts off retail. Almost nobody publishes what designer clothing actually sold for. The figures below come from 437 pieces that sold through Merino's archive — real transaction prices, not asking prices, with a median discount of 80% off estimated retail.
How Resale Pricing Works
Three ways a secondhand price gets set
The channel a piece is listed through matters more than the brand on the label.
Consignment
Open marketplace
Aggregator
Who holds the item
The platform
The seller
The seller
Who sets the price
The platform
The seller
The seller
Typical price level
Closest to retail
Lowest
Lowest
Selection quality
Curated
Unsorted
Curated
Authentication
Usually included
Buyer's responsibility
Buyer's responsibility
A consignment platform takes physical possession, photographs and authenticates the piece, and prices it to cover that work plus its own margin — which is why consignment listings sit closest to retail. An open marketplace has none of those costs, so prices are set by individual sellers who mostly want the item gone. The trade-off is that the good pieces are buried under thousands that aren't. An aggregator like Merino reads the marketplace continuously and surfaces only the listings where price and quality have come apart, which is marketplace pricing without the sorting.
Sold Prices by Brand
What each house actually sells for
Median sold price against median estimated retail. Brands with at least 8 recorded sales.
Brand
Median sold
Est. retail
% off
Sales
Ermenegildo Zegna
$85
$1,800
95%
8
Akris
$99
$1,495
93%
10
Loro Piana
$185
$1,200
89%
53
Max Mara
$100
$895
89%
15
Brunello Cucinelli
$199
$1,400
87%
30
Brooks Brothers
$135
$800
83%
8
Burberry
$150
$895
83%
20
The Row
$128
$850
82%
32
Vince
$61
$325
80%
15
White + Warren
$55
$295
80%
13
Jenni Kayne
$60
$295
75%
40
Eileen Fisher
$42
$178
75%
14
Khaite
$325
$980
73%
8
Barbour
$130
$425
67%
29
Polo Ralph Lauren
$90
$225
62%
19
Doén
$75
$178
61%
21
Retail figures are AI-generated estimates, not manufacturer list prices, and sample sizes at the small end are thin — treat any row under about 15 sales as directional. Sold prices are what buyers actually paid.
Where the Value Sits
Which houses the market underprices
The pattern in the table above is not about quality. It is about name recognition.
Steepest discounts
Zegna · Akris · Loro Piana
The three deepest discounts in the archive belong to three of the best-made houses in it. Zegna suiting and Akris tailoring sell at 93–95% off estimated retail because comparatively few secondhand buyers search for them by name. Nothing about the garment justifies the gap.
Holds value
Doén · Polo Ralph Lauren · Barbour
The shallowest discounts go to the most recognisable names. These are not better-made than the houses above — they are simply searched for more often, and that demand holds the resale floor up. As a buyer, this is the group to avoid.
Quiet luxury
Jil Sander · Boglioli · Caruso · Barrie
Houses known to people who care about construction and largely unknown to everyone else. Soft Neapolitan tailoring and Scottish cashmere, priced as though the label were unremarkable. These rarely command a premium on the secondhand market, which is exactly why they are worth buying there.
Read the fabric
What actually holds up
Full-canvas tailoring, genuine cashmere, waxed cotton: built to last decades, so a ten-year-old example still performs. Fused jackets, synthetic-blend knits and coated cotton do not, and no discount fixes that. Discount depth alone is a poor signal.
Sold Prices by Category
Which categories discount hardest
Tailoring falls furthest. Casual outerwear holds its value best.
Category
Median sold
% off
Sales
Men's blazers
$90
93%
34
Women's blazers
$86
92%
23
Women's dresses
$97
83%
38
Women's coats
$131
83%
38
Men's coats
$162
81%
33
Women's sweaters
$90
81%
101
Men's sweaters
$180
79%
47
Women's tops
$55
73%
76
Chore coats
$119
64%
47
Tailoring discounts hardest because fewer buyers can fit it confidently secondhand and because the market for structured suiting has thinned. That makes a canvassed blazer the single best value in luxury resale — and the hardest to buy without checking measurements first. Our size guide covers the IT and EU conversions most of these pieces carry.
Common Questions
Luxury resale questions
Across 437 sold pieces in Merino's archive, the median discount was 80% off estimated retail, and 51% of pieces sold at 80% off or deeper. That is far below what a retail sale reaches. Store markdowns bottom out around 70% because a retailer cannot sell below its own cost; an individual seller who already owns the piece has no such floor.
A marketplace is almost always cheaper. Consignment platforms take possession of the item, photograph and authenticate it, and price to cover that work plus margin, so their listings sit closest to retail. The trade-off is that a marketplace is unsorted — the savings are real but you do the searching, or use an aggregator that does it for you.
In this archive, Ermenegildo Zegna (95% off), Akris (93%) and Loro Piana (89%) fell furthest from estimated retail. All three are among the best-constructed houses tracked. They depreciate hardest because fewer secondhand buyers search for them by name, not because of anything about the garments.
Doén (61% off), Polo Ralph Lauren (62%) and Barbour (67%) held value best. These are the most widely recognised names in the set, and that recognition keeps the resale floor high. For a buyer, holding value well means paying more.
It depends entirely on the category. Full-canvas tailoring, genuine cashmere and waxed cotton are built to last decades, so a well-kept example from years ago still performs like new — those are worth buying secondhand. Fused tailoring and synthetic-blend knitwear wear out and show it, and a steep discount does not change that.
From 437 pieces that sold or ended through Merino's own archive, using the price the item actually transacted at rather than its asking price. Retail comparisons use AI-generated estimates rather than manufacturer list prices, so the percentages are directional. Sample sizes vary by brand and are shown in the tables above.
