I remember it was 2013 the first time I heard about Poshmark. I was newly out of college, and was instantly interested in the idea of selling my formal dresses and even high school homecoming dresses to earn a bit of extra cash. What was I going to do with that cash? Well I am and always have been fashion obsessed. Of course the answer was buy new clothes — higher quality, better brands, more appropriate for my new corporate job at Google.
It’s over a decade later, and my mindset around what I buy and why has continued to evolve. I try to buy fewer, better (i.e. higher quality) clothes that withstand wear, but also brands that hold their value. As someone who feels like their style is always evolving, it’s not realistic to imagine that I will keep everything for decades. There are some pieces I can’t imagine ever getting rid of, like my favorite Jil Sander gown, my trend-defying Toteme black coat, and my Chanel sandals I saved for months to buy.. But I also believe you should feel empowered to give your clothes another life when you’re ready to move on.
Why we’re building now
My interest in secondhand fashion didn’t stop with just my personal closet. In 2021, I joined ThredUP as a product manager, and learned first hand what running a resale business requires. There’s a staggering stat that on average 80% of items in someone’s closet aren’t worn, and at ThredUP I noticed that many people would send items in once they were far past their prime — many we couldn’t sell profitably. Thus, we looked to better understand what was in people’s closets in order to urge them to sell when their items could still earn a second life, and make sense for our business. I believe there will always be times where you just want to get things out of your closet, but what about the year before where an item's value to you starts to wane? This sparked something in my brain.
The clothing industry is the second biggest polluter globally. In fact, if every consumer this year bought just one second hand garment instead of a new one, it would lower CO2 emissions by more than 2 billion pounds; equal to taking 76 million cars off the road for a day, and save 23 billion gallons of water and 4 billion kilowatt-hours of energy (all stat’s c/o my favorite ThredUP Resale Report). I believe the only true way we can make a difference is producing less, buying better or buying secondhand, and helping clothes cycle through several iterations of wear before they are (hopefully) recycled or retired.
It’s wild that the fashion premium and luxury fashion market is set to be $131B by 2030, but today less than half of consumers in that segment resell. Of those that don’t, the biggest barriers were lack of time to list and manage, and indecision about what to sell when and at what price. And as a longtime seller through almost every channel — Poshmark, TheRealReal, ThredUp — we get it.
The idea for Future Reference
That’s where the idea for Future Referenced started. What if you could digitally archive your purchases as you make them? Saving the info would make it easier to resell peer-to-peer down the line. Who likes filling out a tedious 12 step form when it could be just 4 steps?
A bright spot is that 42% younger generations are more likely to buy apparel with good resale value, and 82% of younger consumers consider the resale value before they buy. What if we all did this? Wouldn’t we buy better, knowing we could recoup some of that value later, while shopping more sustainably?
Over the years as a personal (definitely not professional) reseller I’ve acquired a wealth of knowledge about how to price, what to sell when, and what brands retain their value. What if this info could be easy to access, so you could make better decisions about what remains in your wardrobe and better investments in your personal style. You’d be a more empowered buyer, and (we hope) become an enthusiastic seller. Peer-to-peer resale today has too much friction, and is too much of a hassle, and we aim to change that.
Our vision
Future Reference will be a curated resale marketplace, made up of a community of luxury enthusiasts. We are building a marketplace where luxury obsessors come to buy and sell the brands they love. A core part of that is our digital wardrobe software, which enables you to archive your purchases, track resale value, and sell with ease. All this data combines to form the basis of the Future Reference data archive, where you can browse the closets of our community, send offers, and find the specific pieces you’ve been searching for.
Engaged communities and foundational tech take time to build. We’re a small but mighty team, who are SO passionate about this space. We aim to be transparent as we build, and hope to focus on the pieces that make everyone’s resale experience better, buyers and sellers alike. It will take some time, but we hope you’ll want to use it as much as we do.
Here we go!
