PARIS — Vestiaire Collective’s new chief executive officer Bernard Osta sees 2026 as a pivotal moment for the luxury resale pioneer to get from growth to profitability, which it could reach as soon as this year.

For Osta, the path forward lies less in reinvention than in disciplined execution and deeper penetration of underdeveloped markets, particularly the U.S.

Osta, who took over last fall, previously served as Vestiaire’s chief strategy officer and later chief financial officer, after more than a decade in investment banking at Lazard and Goldman Sachs.

The transition to the top office was not without turbulence. Cofounder Fanny Moizant, who helped build Vestiaire into a global resale player, said publicly that she had not left by choice following the management reshuffle.

Osta’s appointment signaled a shift from a founder-led company to more of a focus on finance and operations.

“If I step back and I think about the situation, what is very important is Vestiaire is super well-positioned from a strategic perspective,” he told WWD in an interview at the company’s Paris headquarters. “What needs to happen is to continue to make sure that we are as focused as possible.”

With nearly 1 billion euros in annual gross merchandise value, the company has yet to post a full-year profit, though Osta noted that the platform delivered positive earnings during the 2025 holiday season.

The U.S. accounts for about 20 percent of GMV but only around 10 percent of sales. For Osta, that gap in the market signals opportunity.

“The potential of Vestiaire in the U.S. is very significant,” he said. “It is top priority for this year.”

The U.S. resale market is already competitive, with luxury consignment specialists like The RealReal to mass market players such as Poshmark, but Osta sees room for growth. Secondhand sales in luxury sit at around 6 to 7 percent of the global luxury goods market, he said.

“I’m more focusing on the 93 percent that are underpenetrated, rather than to split the 6 to 7 percent with the other players already active in the space,” he said.

The company’s 2022 acquisition of U.S. platform Tradesy was primarily designed to boost U.S.-based supply. Increasing local transactions reduces shipping costs and thus boosts sales — a lesson Vestiaire learned in the U.K., where algorithm adjustments following Brexit grew domestic purchases from 20 percent local fulfillment to 80 percent.

Osta is looking for the same structural shift in the U.S., where cross-border transactions are still more common.

“That’s a big, big objective,” Osta said. “This model can gain a lot of market share. The U.S. is a spectacular market, and I think we’re coming to the U.S. with a very exciting offering this year.”

The average U.S. basket now hovers around $450, higher than the European basket, with costs per order at roughly 35 euros.

Unlike some U.S. peers that concentrate heavily on handbags, Vestiaire’s assortment is more balanced across fashion, shoes and accessories, though handbags still represent around 40 percent of the business. They are “a very convenient star product,” and do a lot of heavy lifting to boost the GMV due to their higher price points, Osta said.

In June 2025, Vestiaire upped its fee structure, raising the selling fee on new listings from 10 to 12 percent. Osta indicated there are no increases planned for the foreseeable future.

While VIP concierge and consignment services, similar to what TheRealReal offer, have “grown significantly over the past quarters” in the U.S., the company remains focused on peer-to-peer.

“Because we believe that this is a superior business model,” Osta said, noting the asset-light nature of not having to hold merchandise. “This dual business model [of peer-to-peer plus limited VIP consignment] allows us to scale in a very efficient way.”

Osta cited Bank of America data reflecting an overall retail slowdown due to cost-of-living pressures, and said the U.S. market has been “challenged,” though he noted it has returned to positive territory in recent months — giving glimmers of growth hope.

“When it’s tough, it’s tough, but then when it rebounds, things can evolve very rapidly. I am very confident that Vestiaire is entering into a very exciting cycle in the U.S.,” he said.

Business in Asia, concentrated in Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, as well as Australia, accounts for roughly 10 percent of sales. Osta describes the market as promising, but he is taking a more “tactical” approach there following expansion in recent years.

Despite staff reductions, expanding and training authentication staff remains an area of investment.

Osta said that current error rates on counterfeits are less than one in 1,000, and human authenticators are trained alongside AI-assisted verification tools. “Trust is something you build with years and that you can lose rapidly,” he said.

Vestiaire counts 15 public luxury brand partnerships, with numerous confidential collaborations supporting authentication and staff training. The company also returns counterfeit “super fakes” to brands for training.

Luxury brands are increasingly interested in resale, because the market helps to stabilize primary market pricing. If a buyer knows they can resell a bag to reinvest in the next trend, it bolsters the prices for new items, while the designer chess game played out over the last few seasons has boosted interest in vintage collections and hard-to-find pieces that increases search and site traffic.

Osta also sees growth in “resale as a service,” helping luxury brands manage inventory and operations with Vestiaire differentiated from white-label providers that work with “affordable luxury” and high-street brands.

Kering, which holds a 5 percent stake in the company and maintains a board seat, remains “very active, very supportive,” Osta said.

“Innovation is a top priority for Luca de Meo, and I do believe that he’s also a big supporter of secondhand. So I only hear positive signals,” he said of the new Kering CEO, who took the reins in 2025.

Competition is shifting. EBay has been actively pursuing a larger share of the luxury resale market by expanding its consignment offering in handbags and apparel, revamping its European user experience, and investing in influencer marketing and high-profile activations such as its “Endless Runway” show during London Fashion Week. It has also partnered with independent designers — including Niccolò Pasqualetti, a Paris Fashion Week fave — on resale initiatives, among other efforts to boost its visibility at the luxury end of the market, prompting Osta to take a measured view.

“I can look at the glass half full or half empty. We see them as a competitor and relevant player now. But Vestiaire has done everything that was necessary to sit at the very exclusive table of luxury fashion players, and this creates a very significant strategic advantage that we want to build on,” he said, noting its brand partnerships give it a significant competitive advantage.

Sustainability, championed at Vestiaire by Moizant, remains a structural tailwind. Osta emphasizes that consumer demand for circular fashion continues to grow even if investor attention has ebbed over the last two years as investors — and many brands alike — have gone “back to basics” by focusing on boosting sales.

But the cat is out of the proverbial bag when it comes to consumers.

“It’s a journey toward sustainability [and] consumers will progressively go in that direction. Investors and brands will have no choice then to follow the trend imposed by consumers,” he said.

Osta also noted the company will remain active in policy in both France and at the European Union level in Brussels. He recently hosted French government ministers at its authentication center to support regulatory frameworks favoring circular business models and standards.

Speculation around an initial public offering has followed Vestiaire through the leadership change, but Osta said the company is not looking at a public listing. “With our GMV slightly below a billion [euros], that’s too small to IPO, so we need to continue to execute against this amazing opportunity,” he said. The private market offers flexibility to focus on execution rather than quarterly scrutiny, he added.

“I do believe that with time, we could be a very good IPO candidate,” he said, citing several companies that went public in prior years but failed to meet investor expectations once the market cooled.

“That’s the last thing I want for this year. I want to make sure that we have the right framework, from a capital structure perspective, to continue to focus on the business and make the right decision for this year. The attractiveness [after] this year will continue to increase, making an IPO at some point a possibility, but not in the short term,” Osta said.