This AI From Oxford University Is Set To Revolutionise Selling Pre-loved Clothes Online

If you’ve ever been sucked into a second-hand scroll session on Vinted or eBay, you’ll know that pre-loved fashion is booming. In fact, searches for “pre-loved fashion” on eBay shot up by 400% since summer 2024, and 71% of Gen Z are now proudly rocking someone else’s castoffs. But behind the slow scroll lies a much bigger problem: resale fashion is tricky to scale.

While we’ve moved on from digging through charity shop bins, resale platforms still struggle to turn a profit. The culprit? Hidden costs. It takes serious time (and money) to inspect, photograph, and list each individual item—none of the simplicity of batch-uploading thousands of identical T-shirts here.

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That’s where AI comes in—and not just any AI, but Oxford-born, fashion-fixing AI. Enter Aistetic, a University of Oxford spinout on a mission to streamline resale. They’ve teamed up with Messina Hembry, a vintage resale brand that uploads 7,000+ pieces each week, to change the game.

Aistetic’s AI uses computer vision to tag, label and describe clothing directly from images—no need for a human to sit and input every sleeve length and fabric blend by hand. “Using Aistetic’s AI Listing solution has revolutionised our workflow,” says Zac Hembry, CEO of Messina Hembry. “We’ve seen a 3X increase in our listing capacity, a 70% reduction in our workflows and increases in conversions linked to faster, more accurate tagging.”

Image @miaisobellebarker via IG

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Duncan McKay, CEO of Aistetic, adds: “Our goal is to empower resale platforms with the AI tools they need to scale profitably while driving sustainability. Through this partnership with Messina Hembry, we’re helping them unlock more capacity, enhance the shopping experience, and contribute to the circular economy.”

And the benefits aren’t just for the sellers. Shoppers get smarter, more personalised results—so instead of endless scrolling, you’ll actually find the Y2K cargo trousers of your dreams.

Image @miaisobellebarker via IG

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The takeaway? AI is no longer just powering your playlist recommendations or ChatGPT responses—it’s now sorting your second-hand skirts and making fashion resale faster, smarter and far more scalable. And with the resale market projected to keep growing, this kind of tech is set to be the future of sustainable fashion.

So next time you hit ‘buy’ on that reworked denim jacket, spare a thought for the Oxford AI that helped you find it (and made the listing in seconds).