The past year has brought an unusual wave of creative director debuts at fashion's biggest houses. eBay's data suggests that each one has also sent shoppers looking backwards. According to the marketplace's Watchlist Trend Report for Fall/Winter 2026, published on 10 November, searches for new designers rose sharply after their debuts. So did listings, and in some cases prices, for the designers who defined the same houses in earlier eras.
eBay bases the report on data from its 136 million active buyers and its billions of live listings. Like any platform's own figures, they describe one marketplace rather than the whole secondhand market. But the pattern they show is consistent across houses and worth reading closely.
New names, old archives
The headline comparisons pair a current designer with a predecessor at the same house:
| House | Search rise for the new designer | Archive measure (year on year) |
|---|---|---|
| Chanel | Matthieu Blazy: +291% | Karl Lagerfeld-era listings: +87% |
| Dior | Jonathan Anderson: +92% | John Galliano-era average sale prices: +81% |
| Gucci | Demna: +42% | Tom Ford-era listings: +49% |
Source: eBay Watchlist Trend Report Fall/Winter 2026, as published by eBay Inc. and reported by Vogue.
Vogue, reporting on the findings, adds the timing. Searches for Blazy jumped when his first Chanel collection reached stores, for Anderson after his first couture show for Dior, and for Demna after his first Gucci runway show. The same pattern reaches back into earlier eras: listings for Demna's own Balenciaga are up 204% year on year, and for Phoebe Philo's Chloé up 165%.
Reading the numbers carefully
These are not all the same kind of measure, and the difference matters. A rise in listings means more people are offering pieces for sale. Vogue reads the jump in Tom Ford-era Gucci as owners "capitaliz[ing] on current interest to sell past collections". It shows sellers responding to the attention, not necessarily buyers paying more. A rise in average sale prices, as with Galliano's Dior, is a closer measure of demand. Even so, Vogue notes that luxury's continuing retail price rises have probably played a part. eBay measured the price changes from January to September 2026.
The clearest sign of the brand-heat effect is Chanel's own position on eBay. It was not among the platform's top-purchased luxury brands from 2022 to 2024, Vogue reports. It reached fifth in 2025 and is third in 2026, behind Louis Vuitton and Gucci, which have held the top two places since 2022. The RealReal recorded a similar surge: its 2026 resale report, released in August, found that searches for Blazy rose 10,976% after his appointment (see also our report on The RealReal's third quarter).
The bags rising fastest
Beyond the archives, the report tracks individual pieces. Prices for The Row's Margaux bag are up 137% year on year, and demand for Gucci's Giglio tote is up 103%. Kirsty Keoghan, eBay's general manager of EU fashion and luxury, links many of the price increases to celebrity sightings. The listing figures are steeper still:
- Balenciaga Le City: listings up 936%, as the bag marks its 25th anniversary
- Loewe Amazona 180: listings up 440%
- Valentino Garavani VLogo: listings up 358%
- Bottega Veneta Veneta: listings up 158%
eBay also notes a growing menswear following for some of fashion's most coveted bags, with global listings rising for the Amazona 180 and Bottega Veneta's Intrecciato Andiamo. "There is an intentionality about owning something with cultural relevance, longevity, and a sense of value," Keoghan told Vogue.
From the runway to the secondhand rail
The report also shows how quickly a current show can send shoppers to older stock. After Prada's spring 2027 show in Milan on 22 September (see our Milan Fashion Week report), global eBay searches for "Prada skirt" rose more than 360% compared with the start of the month. Searches for slingbacks rose more than 65% from the start of fashion month, and for Chanel slingbacks by 50%, after a season of slingbacks on the house's runways.
"You can find an earlier version of the idea, sometimes at a more accessible price point, and make it your own," Brie Welch, the stylist who worked on the report as eBay's resident stylist, told Vogue. Keoghan sees a more deliberate shopper: "People are shopping with a sharper point of view; they want to be part of the conversation, and they are shopping pre-loved to achieve that."
What it means
For houses, the findings are a reminder that a creative debut sells more than the new collection. It also refreshes interest in everything the house has made before, much of which now changes hands without the brand. Vogue's conclusion is pointed: if shoppers decide that the value is better in the secondary market than the primary one, "brands ought to pay attention". For collectors, the lesson is to separate signals. More listings bring more choice, but often no higher prices. Rising sale prices, as with Galliano's Dior, show where demand is outpacing supply. eBay plans to turn the report into a run of eBay Live shopping streams from 15 November, with sellers including Vookum, Reserved Luxury and Bolt Luxury. That will be an early test of how much of the archive interest turns into holiday spending.
Featured image: Queen Bee, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped for this page.
