British 60-year-old Maxine Laceby switched to the weight-loss drug Mounjaro, lost about 2.5 stone (roughly 16 kg), and dropped from a size 16 to a size 10. She has since earned about £6,000 (roughly 55,000 RMB) reselling her own old clothes. She sold mass-market brands such as M&S and Sweaty Betty through Vinted, and mid-to-high-end pieces including a Gucci dress, Balenciaga sneakers, and Me+Em shirts and trousers through the luxury resale platform Sign Of The Times, with the latter contributing about £4,372. She is a co-founder of the health brand Absolute Collagen.

Key Points

  • Maxine Laceby used Mounjaro for about two and a half years, dropping from a size 16 to a size 10 (at 5 feet 7 inches tall), losing about 2.5 stone, and earning roughly £6,000 in total from reselling old clothes.
  • According to research by Worldpanel by Numerator, GLP-1 weight-loss drug use has nearly tripled in two years, with more than 6% of households having at least one user; in the year after starting the medication, these households' total grocery spending fell by £780 million.
  • The global online clothing rental market was worth about £1.12 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach £2.31 billion by 2032.

Weight Loss Drives Wardrobe Overhaul, Plus-Size Inflow and Smaller-Size Outflow on Resale Platforms

According to Laceby, she began using Wegovy before Christmas 2023, switched to Mounjaro because she felt tired, and has been using it for about two and a half years. She mentioned that a December 2023 shoot with TV presenter Emma Willis was a turning point: at the time she was a size 16, and none of the clothes provided by the stylist fit, prompting her to decide to change.

In the past, her wardrobe contained both size 14 and size 16 clothing, a "yo-yo" pattern that made Laceby realize how much she had accumulated when clearing out old clothes. She listed mass-market brand clothing on Vinted, while high-end and mid-range pieces went to the luxury resale platform Sign Of The Times mentioned in earlier reports, which accounted for the roughly £4,372 she earned. She said she still has a Gucci skirt and a zip-up top ready to sell because they no longer fit.

Antonia Johnstone, founder and CEO of Sign Of The Times, said GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are an "accelerator" for the rise of secondhand resale, with more plus-size clothing flowing onto the platform; at the same time, consumers who have lost weight are also seeking smaller sizes, and smaller-size items "sell faster." She said that a few years ago, UK size 6 clothing sat in inventory far longer than size 14, but now the situation has reversed.

The above statistics and inferences come from research by Worldpanel by Numerator: GLP-1 drug use has nearly tripled over the past two years, and more than 6% of households now have at least one user; within a year of starting the medication, users' households collectively reduced grocery spending by £780 million. Industry observers believe that size changes among this group are driving activity in the clothing resale market, with many people earning cash returns by selling clothes from before their weight loss.

Clothing Rental Becomes Another Monetization Path

The article also introduces the clothing rental market. The global online clothing rental market was valued at £1.12 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach £2.31 billion by 2032, driven in part by women wanting to make better use of their wardrobes amid rising living costs.

Jemima Bermingham, 28, is one example. Over the past three years, she has earned about £60,000 by renting out 150 dresses. Her renters are wedding guests, partygoers, and even brides aged 25 to 55. Before Christmas 2022, she left her job as operations manager at the rental and resale platform Hurr with no next job lined up, then began listing a small batch of her dresses on Hurr and another popular UK rental platform, By Rotation. She had less than £1,000 in savings at the time and initially just wanted to test how much she could earn over the Christmas holiday; after recouping the money, she kept reinvesting it into expanding her inventory.

Bermingham traveled to South America for six months in 2024, and the business supported her trip; in October last year she moved from London to Brazil on a two-year work visa. She now manages orders remotely, with her friend Holly handling shipping in southwest London on a revenue-share basis. During the peak summer event season, she has up to 30 rental orders a week, and she receives rental income within three days of items being returned. Her most-rented item, a Reéalisation Par striped dress (retail price £325, daily rental £51), has been booked back-to-back since June and has earned £650 on its own. She also cautions that the rental market is seasonal: April to September is peak season for wedding-guest rentals, October slows down, demand for little black dresses rises around Halloween, mid-November to December and New Year are peak periods for party-dress rentals, and January to March is the off-season.

In terms of experience, Bermingham first recommends three brands with the highest rental demand for occasion wear: Rixo, Réalisation Par, and Rat & Boa. She suggests checking your own wardrobe first, starting before peak season, buying secondhand clothing on Vinted or at sample sales to recoup costs faster, and paying attention to platforms' recommended prices: popular styles can be priced above the suggested price, while less popular items can be priced slightly lower to increase rental chances. She says the most popular sizes are 8, 10, and 12; when clothing is damaged, she prefers to ask the renter to buy a similar secondhand replacement within a month, to avoid the platform process dragging on. Beyond the "most profitable items," she also rents out pieces with sentimental value, but that is not her first choice.

What It Means for the Industry

One thread in this article is that collective weight loss driven by GLP-1 weight-loss drugs is creating a clear size shift in the old-clothing market—plus-size clothing is flowing faster into secondhand and rental channels, while demand for smaller sizes is amplified, and the resale platform Sign Of The Times also describes this as a rising driver. Another thread is the assetization of rental businesses: using 150 items of inventory to generate £60,000 in revenue over three years, while controlling costs through platform commissions, cross-regional shipping, and self-managed "damage assessment" rules, showing that personal idle clothing is becoming an operating business with calculable returns. For secondhand cross-border exporters and occasion-wear category operators, changes in size structure and the product-selection logic of rental channels are worth incorporating into their reference.