Puppets made from pre-loved clothing strut the catwalk in new campaign for Vestiaire Collective

Over the last decade, fashion has been under broad attack for its environmentally unsuitable practices. Indeed the very notion of fast fashion is becoming increasingly, well, unfashionable.

But much of the industry is evolving to meet this new reality. And Vestiaire Collective is a case in point. The France-based company operates an online marketplace where you can buy pre-owned luxury and fashion items.

Vestiaire Collective is dedicated to transforming the fashion industry for a more sustainable future by promoting the circular fashion movement as an alternative to overproduction and overconsumption. It aims to build a community of people who live for fashion and take care of it, providing inspiration, tools and features to lead the change as they sell and buy unique pre-loved pieces from each other's wardrobes. The platform is known for its highly engaged audience and its rare, desirable inventory of three million items.

Now Vestiaire Collective has partnered with the multi-award-winning creative agency Droga5 London on a new campaign to promote this brand philosophy. Central to the campaign is a collective of brand ambassadors with a difference: they're all puppets made from recycled clothes. These stylish sewn stars, named Miss Classique, Rich, Lady Green, Drops and Hunter, unite under the rallying cry 'Long Live Fashion', expressing the brand's love of fashion and desire to make it live forever.

The puppets, which were made by Puppets Magic Studio, represent the different style tribes within the Vestiaire community and the different reasons people shop on the platform. Miss Classique epitomises taste in luxury fashion, Rich represents the smart sellers, Lady Green is all about the brand's core value of sustainability, Drops speaks to a second chance at limited releases, and Hunter has a keen eye for vintage.

A promo video for French and Italian TV is set at a fashion show where the collective strut their stuff on the catwalk. Directed by Andreas Nilsson, it features the famous French fashion commentator and journalist Loïc Prigent, who narrates the action and makes a cameo appearance. There's an accompanying outdoor, print and social campaign featuring the puppets posing alongside a diverse group of models, shot by British-Ghanaian photographer Campbell Addy.

The campaign will also run online globally across Vestiaire Collective's social channels and in digital media in the US, UK, Spain and Hong Kong.

"Our ambition, from a global marketing and branding perspective, has always been to demonstrate the brand's mission of transforming the fashion industry for a more sustainable future," says Vanessa Masliah, VP, marketing and branding at Vestiaire. "Our pre-loved campaign felt like the perfect creative expression of this and gave us such a rich platform to build a bold marketing programme around. This has allowed us to showcase our fashion and sustainability credentials in the most talkable way while also speaking to each member of our growing community and the reasons they choose to shop on the Vestiaire Collective platform."

David Kolbusz, the chief creative officer of Droga5 London, adds: "Our pre-loved campaign was inspired by Vestiaire Collective's purpose-led business, a company that prioritises circularity and resells high-end fashion. And who better to give voice to the brand than the clothes they sell, fashioned into puppets? Our collective of puppets – stars in their own right – are not only made from pre-loved clothes, but they also model them; the ideal representation of this wonderful business."

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