Featuring Turnabout Luxury Resale located in Oak Bay on Vancouver Island.
Three weeks ago I visited with Jane Ravvin the Director of Sales for Turnabout Luxury Resale in Oak Bay and got to learn a little bit about Turnabout and about her background in Fashion.
Jane has had extensive experience within the Fashion Industry, starting with a degree in Fashion Marketing at the age of 17 in Los Angeles. Shortly after graduation she moved to Toronto to work as a booking agent for some of the top female Models in Canada, Makeup Artists, and Hair Stylists. Jane was later offered a position working for Click Model Management in New York. Jane returned to her roots in Calgary after this and worked as a buyer for two major Canadian multi-store retailers for 15 years. In her spare time she also worked to help friends and family personalize their style, wardrobes and homes, and soon found out that it was a business in itself. She still offers personal shopping and styling services at an hourly rate and has had clients across Canada.
I asked Jane to point out some of her favourite pieces in the store and was pointed in the direction of two pieces. One, a new piece (so new it didn't even have tags yet) the Celine Fall 2018 Black Leather Medium Made In Tote. Oh boy I was in awe, Celine is likely my favourite luxury brand and this piece was just gorgeous. The embossed Celine logo on the glossy black leather was stunning. Second, a vintage Alexander McQueen leather jacket. Julia (featured in the photos) absolutely adores this jacket and couldn't have been happier to model it for us.
Turnabout Luxury Resale has been in business for 43 years, owner and founder Joy Mauro opened the first location on Granville Street in Vancouver, British Columbia at the age of 23. In 2020 Turnabout Community in East Vancouver, a fully not for profit location was added to their family of locations.
Last March shortly after COVID began they had their first "Tour n about" where individuals had the ability to buy tickets that gave them access to visit 4 of the locations, Ferry fare, and a spot on the bus. Each location also had a special offer for those lucky individuals as well as some little bits and bites. Sounds fun right? I'm kicking myself that I didn't sign up to go, it sounded and looked like such fun and all the beautiful pieces oh boy....
Now as some of you know I preach consignment, oh do I ever. I would far rather purchase an item (especially designer) second hand, there are already so many out there and knowing how frequently others will refresh their collections really gets you thinking that "Hey there's a lot out there why buy new when there's one in amazing condition for a fraction of the price?"
Consignment is not limited to selling only designer goods, they sell so much more. This really gives us all the ability to play our part in minimizing the amount of waste we create by purchasing pre-owned items from pair of Artizia jeans, a Shacket from Zara to a pair of Manolo Blahnik heels.
Fast fashion made keeping up with trends, seasons and colours of the year much easier for those who didn't have expendable incomes to spend on a new wardrobe each time but at the cost of creating more waste. We think that whatever we don't want when these trends change someone else will, but in all reality most of what we buy ends up in landfills not in someone else's closet.
Many of us are privileged enough to be able to throw things away when we are done with them or tired of them, but being mindful where these things are going could help to reduce the waste we create and gives us the ability to recycle pieces we are tired of.
The fashion industry is one of the leading contributors to environmental impacts like water pollution and produces 10% of the all humanity's carbon emissions according to the world economic forum in January of 2020. (Keep in mind these numbers have gone up since 2020, but I could not find updated statistics.)
"Clothing production has roughly doubled since 2000.
While people bought 60% more garments in 2014 than in 2000, they only kept the clothes for half as long.
In Europe, fashion companies went from an average offering of two collections per year in 2000 to five in 2011.
Some brands offer even more. Zara puts out 24 collections per year, while H&M offers between 12 and 16.
A lot of this clothing ends up in the dump. The equivalent of one garbage truck full of clothes is burned or dumped in a landfill every second."
(McFall-Johnsen, M. (2020) World Economic Forum)
As someone who dreams of those fashion blogger/ style icon wardrobes, I learned the hard way that 80% of my belongings were clothing. Most of which hasn't been worn within the past year, and even still that doesn't include boxes still waiting at my mom's house for me to go through for donation, consignment and storage and the two donation boxes in the trunk of our car.
At the beginning of the pandemic I had made the decision to purchase only from consignment stores, (however sadly I didn't quite keep to that), buying consignment is one way to be mindful and try to help with reducing the amount of waste caused by the fashion industry. There are others, but that's a topic for another day.
Shopping pre-owned pieces reduces the amount of waste. You are rehoming a piece that has been loved, giving it a new life and it also can help to save a bit of money in the end.
I asked Jane what her favourite consignment find was, she said it was a Valentino Camel Hair Coat. Absolutely gorgeous, enough so to the point where people stop her on the street and ask to buy it. She told them it wasn't for sale and that she would go to the grave with it, I don't blame her!
For me, it is my Prada Almond toe black suede boots. I found these back in December of 2018, tried them on and was told to pass on them... I spent the next two weeks thinking about them and went back only for them to be nowhere to be seen. Lucky for me on my way out I just happened to look to my left and there they were. These have been my go to boots for special occasions since then, and will be with me as long as I can hold on to them for.
My favourite purchase from Turnabout so far though is a pair of Dior Stellaire Sunglasses, which I purchased last summer.
What is your favourite pre-owned/ consignment piece you own?
Thanks for reading,
Hannah
Resources:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/fashion-industry-carbon-unsustainable-environment-pollution/
