Emily in Paris season 4, episode 1 spoiler alerts ahead.
When it comes to the fashion in Emily in Paris, everyone always wants to talk about the over-the-top choices of the show's love-her-hate-her protagonist Emily Cooper, played by Lily Collins. But let's be serious: it's Mindy (Ashley Park) who has the true style prowess, and during part 1 of season 4, her relationship with fashion gets even more interesting.
In episode 1, Mindy's boyfriend Nico gives her an outfit from JVMA, the fashion conglomerate owned by his father. It's a pink couture Chanel-esque mini dress that Emily calls a little more “Kate Middleton” than what she's used to seeing Mindy wear. The note on the dress claimed that: “The only rule of the JVMA suite at the French Open is that everyone has to wear a JVMA designer.” Fair enough. Mindy excitedly wears the dress even though it's a bit out of her bright and experimental style preferences.
At the Open, however, Mindy quickly finds out that the gift was simply a ploy to “make me more palatable to your dad,” as she tells Nico. Mindy doesn't take this lightly (thankfully) and instead turns it into a business opportunity.
To pay for her trip to Eurovision, she brings the dress to Vestiaire Collective (a fictional in-store version of a very real luxury resale app), and almost as soon as she drops it off, over 3,000€ (around 3,300 USD) are dropped in her account.
It seems like a great ploy if you have a rich boyfriend in fashion, but we wondered how realistic this storyline is. Well, Vestiaire Collective North American CEO Samina Virk tells Teen Vogue that it's spot on except for one little detail. “We are a digital-first platform, we do have moments in time where we have popups, we have brand activations, we have brand events, and then we do have a VIP consignment service where while most of the platform people are buying and selling, we can reach out to people and coordinate with them on in-home or virtual appointments.”
So no, you can't walk into a shop in Paris, however, she emphasized that the actual quick sale straight into her account was pretty realistic because of how the app is set up. “While somebody isn't going in and dropping off their items, the way we work is when you sell an item, it gets sent to us here, and we authenticate our luxury items. So, it was also a way to sort of convey the fact that we have expert authentication. People can list quickly. It does get assessed and curated digitally.” So when people have saved searches for an item, and yours comes up, you could realistically sell it and pocket all of that money quickly. “It could be very likely that you get an alert right away. Somebody liked your item, somebody is asking about the price, and somebody's potentially bought your item right away.”
If you are interested in selling your clothes on Vestiaire Collective, there is one thing to keep in mind. In 2022, the app stopped allowing sellers to list fast fashion and released a list of banned brands. “A couple of years ago we decided we want to focus on higher-end, higher quality products. And that starts at the beginning of the circle. So when you're buying, how do you buy intentionally and buy something that can last longer, stand the test of time, and then when you're done with it, you're ready to give it up and sell it, and therefore the quality will stand that test of time.” To illustrate this commitment, they released a cost-per-wear equation that shows that because fast fashion breaks down so quickly, the cost per wear is higher than luxury items.
So, if you find yourself shopping the closets of a fashion luxury conglomerate and are picked to represent a European country at Eurovision, could you actually technically pay for it by selling expensive clothing? Some estimates for Eurovision costs are well over 100,000€ (though that is covered by the country, which Emily in Paris's fictional France has opted out of), so if you sell a lot, then sure!
