Dechert and Latham & Watkins are advising on secondhand luxury marketplace Vestiaire Collective’s acquisition of US resale platform Tradesy.

The deal – for an undisclosed sum – promises to accelerate Vestiaire’s growth in the US, which is already its largest market, and taps into the growing demand by consumers for sustainable fashion.

Dechert’s work on the deal follows on from a run of financing instructions for Vestiaire, which was founded in 2009 in Paris by now-president Fanny Moizant and fashion director Sophie Hersan, initially operating out of Moizant’s apartment.

It advised on a September 2021 €178m fundraising backed by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Generation Investment Management and a €40m round in 2019 led by French national investment bank Bpifrance and Lazada founder Max Bittner, as the new CEO.

Los Angeles-based Latham partner Alex Voxman, meanwhile, is a long-time adviser to Tradesy, which was also founded in 2009, by Santa Monica entrepreneur Tracy DiNunzio.

--------------------

Read the GLP Law Over Borders Fashion Law comparative guide

-------------

The two parties to the deal said it would ‘increase the size and reach of their peer-to-peer marketplaces’ to the direct benefit of sellers and buyers. 

 “We are particularly enthusiastic about the scale we are reaching together and the associated benefits in the highly attractive US market,” said Moizant.

The combined company will boast a membership community of 23 million, a catalogue of five million items and a gross merchandise value exceeding $1 billion.

“We are proud to have advised long-standing client Vestiaire Collective in yet another deal to strengthen its position in the global luxury fashion market,” said corporate partner Gregory Schernecke, who is based in Philadelphia and led on the deal alongside Federico G. Pappalardo, managing partner of the US firm’s Munich and Frankfurt offices.

He added: “The deal with Tradesy achieves enhanced scale in the US, increases the size and reach of their peer-to-peer marketplaces and supports their objective of delivering a world-class customer experience to buyers and sellers across the globe with a focus on sustainability and environmental impact.”

The Dechert team included Paris-based national partner and corporate specialist Delphin Boucher, employee benefits partner Kevin Kay (New York), tax partners Sabina Comis (Paris) and Michael Lehmann (New York)  employment national partner Thibault Meiers (Paris), intellectual property partner Thomas Rayski (New York), privacy and cybersecurity partner Timothy Blank (Boston) and antitrust partners James Fishkin (Washington DC) and Clemens York (Brussels).

Luxury Law Summit Europe will take place in June at The British Museum in London. Book your place here