Yiannis is getting married. Like most grooms, he went through the familiar process of finding the perfect suit, shoes, belt, socks and pocket square to be carefully folded and placed in his jacket pocket. Everything came from a high-end menswear store in Kolonaki, Athens’ upscale shopping district.
The shirt, however, was a different story.
He bought it on Vinted, the popular online platform for buying, selling and exchanging second-hand clothing.
“I paid a total of six euros, not for one shirt, but two.” he says. “It’s worth it. If I don’t like one, I have the other. I saved over a hundred euros.”
A Conscious Financial Choice
Yiannis’s decision reflects a broader shift toward second-hand clothing as a deliberate financial decision. Increasingly, the second-hand market is moving beyond its traditional role, creating what is effectively a parallel retail system that is gradually becoming about much more than fashion, trends and even the environmental consciousness that lies at its core.
Used goods — mainly through popular platforms such as Vinted and Vendora — are already thriving in Greece. Even Facebook Marketplace remains a reliable tool for finding all kinds of products. “I’ll check there too because I can always find something interesting,” says Yiannis. “I’ve bought everything from shoes to electronic devices on Marketplace. For clothes, though, I now look exclusively at dedicated platforms. For now, I only buy; I don’t sell.”
When similar platforms first appeared in Greece in 2024, Athena saw her group of friends adopt them almost immediately, helping, as she puts it, to keep “money circulating.” She did the same.
In fact, Athena had been buying second-hand clothing both online and in physical stores since she was very young. “It’s worth it,” she says today. “Money goes in a circle because you sell and buy. But even if you don’t sell, the prices are completely different from what you find in stores. It’s far more affordable.”
Shortly before the end of 2025, a Europe-wide survey by Solid Havas found that one in two Greeks had purchased a second-hand product during the previous year. Seventy-two percent cited financial reasons as their primary motivation, while among younger consumers, environmental awareness also played a significant role.
The fashion industry, after all, produces 92 million tons of textile waste every year — equivalent to a garbage truck full of clothing being discarded every second.
The survey also found that people aged 56 to 65 are particularly active in the second-hand market, ranking first in purchases. Many would assume that Generation Z and Millennials dominate the sector because of their heavy social media use, but the data challenges that stereotype.
That does not mean younger generations are inactive. Quite the opposite.
The second-hand shopping experience in Greece is overwhelmingly digital. Eighty-eight percent of consumers buy used items through apps, with online advertising and social media serving as their primary sources of information.
This helps explain the popularity of these platforms and marketplaces.
“I first learned about them through Instagram,” Katerina tells TO VIMA. “I’ve noticed that people in my age group, between 20 and 27, are moving in the same direction. There’s a ‘second chance’ philosophy when it comes to clothes: you pass on something you no longer use, someone else gets value from it, and you can use that money to buy something you actually need.”
The rapid rise of second-hand products in Greece is also reflected in official figures from the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT). Sales at physical second-hand stores increased from €8.6 million in 2020 to €57.1 million in 2025.
Vivi and Yiannis, who own a second-hand store in the Kypseli neighborhood of Athens, see the boom as a completely natural development.
“We opened our store in 2020. We’re ‘children of the coronavirus era’ — that’s when we were born,” they say. “It was inevitable that things would reach this point. We could see it coming. People were looking for low prices then, and they still are.”
Their most common customers are between 25 and 50 years old.
What are they looking for?
“Mostly jeans, sportswear and pieces from well-known designers that are now difficult to find. And a lot of vintage clothing too — items with quality and character. More and more people are turning their backs on fast fashion,” the pair tell TO VIMA.
Vintage items remain one of the strongest attractions of second-hand stores. “They simply can’t be compared to new clothes in terms of quality. But there’s also the nostalgia factor — people are drawn to past decades, especially the 1980s and 1990s.”
For his wedding, Yiannis chose an Italian suit. He says the designer drew inspiration from earlier decades, evident in the thin pinstripes often seen in films from the 1970s.
“As for the shirt, who knows?” he says with a laugh. “It only cost six euros. Besides, it won’t even be visible. Who pays attention to the shirt anyway?”
