Make the Shift to go and Thrift

Mae Ready

Thrift stores have been around for decades. They have been a way for people to buy clothes for a cheap price if they weren’t able to afford clothes from regular department stores and for others, it’s a way to live a waste free life. Some second-hand stores accept clothing donations that keep clothes out of landfills and other second-hand stores put some extra money in people’s pockets by buying clothing from them. Not only does it give old clothes a second chance at life, but thrifting is a very popular activity for ages young to old. Avid thrifters say that thrifting is a community and gives people companionship among others. Bella(C),a customer at Pavement thrift store says,

Store says “I thrifted all of my clothes for financial reasons, that all that was kinda available to us so I never did buy my clothes new. I was always going thrifting and places where clothing was reused. And a lot of the clothing there tends to be vintage so I think it just sorta fell into that and I just like old Hollywood and the era of the 40s.” Thrifting helped Emelina develop her unique style.. Thanks to clothing at thrift stores never being the same, it leaves room for all different kinds of people to find what they’re interested in and can lead them to develop their true style.

In this day and age, people take fashion pretty seriously. A Lot of people may not be as financially stable as others too. And, finding clothes that you find attractive at thrift stores can be a bit of a process. So a way that people quickly obtain cheap clothes is through fast fashion. Fast fashion is low-quality clothing that is mass-produced for extremely cheap and is very popular among people who want inexpensive, trendy clothes. But the consequence of all the mass-produced clothing is the damage it does to the environment. Clothing made in factories sometimes ends up in the oceans and toxic dyes pollute water. Not only does it affect the environment, but fast fashion workers are heavily exploited. So is all of the damage that fast fashion creates worth it?

She described thrifting as a community despite being strangers to the people around her.

Thrift stores attract all different kinds of people that wear all different kinds of things. Whether or not it’s considered trending, everyone dresses for themselves. Emelina, an employee at OKASAN Thrift

Taking this into consideration, it is no wonder why all of the people interviewed mentioned the environment and how thrifting helps. “Well I mean, sustainable fashion, in the fashion industry, there is so much child labor and water use and all of that stuff. I think reusing clothes is such a good thing and people should do it but definitely finding a way to keep prices down would be good for everyone.” Says Bella-

(C), a customer of Pavement thrift store in regards to why she likes thrifting. Emelina said,

I know everybody is in a different situation that prevents them from being able to do environmentally friendly things. It’s not always from a place of malice or not caring about the planet, it’s more about what resources are available to them.

It’s not fair to blame people who want to buy inexpensive clothes that happen to be bad for the environment. The reason fast fashion is an issue is because of the industry. How the industry creates, the process, and the materials the clothes are made from, not the customers. Although there are no hard feelings against customers of fast fashion that don’t have any other option than to shop at fast fashion stores, it is the customers that discard their clothes after a few uses that cause the most issues.

The fast fashion industry has been around for a while now, but recently the fast fashion train began to really pick up speed. Some people might remember that there was a pandemic that kept everyone in quarantine for a while. Thousands of people stayed inside for months, and being cooped up inside, people tried to find ways for life to feel semi-normal. Shopping was one of the most normal activities to do. All the shopping transferred to online, where some of the biggest fast fashion companies exist. However, since most shopping was done online, people had to get creative to obtain clothes ethically. One of those creative people was Bella(C). “Me and my friends traded clothes at that point or would leave them at each other’s houses.” Although when the pandemic restrictions loosened up a bit and people were able to shop in-person more, thrift stores weren’t too badly impacted. At Pavement Thrift Store, an employee named Bella(E) said “We [Pavement Thrift Store] upheld the mask mandate a lot longer than other companies just because we have some more at-risk people. But it was still pretty busy. I feel like it didn’t really affect that much.”

There are both pros and cons to thrifting. As previously mentioned, thrifting has been an affordable alternative to buying clothes for decades. However, since buying second-hand items beca- me so popular, some people have taken advantage of that. Some people buy secondhand clothes and then sell them for a higher price than what they bought the clothes for. Although this isn’t necessarily bad, it is causing thrift stores to raise their prices, which is bad. This creates a domino effect in which more and more thrift stores are beginning to raise their prices. If second-hand stores are becoming more expensive, this leaves people who aren’t as financially stable and want to shop sustainably, stranded. thrift stores all my life.

Emelina says.

Despite this, shopping at thrift stores is still a very popular activity, simply because it’s so gratifying. Bella(C) said this about thrifting.“I do love the feeling of when you find that amazing piece and you’re like ‘Someone got rid of this? Okay, I’ll take it!’ So that’s probably my favorite thing. It’s like fishing or trying to find treasure. That part is really fun and it makes it a lot more fun than going to the mall and buying something.”

Thrifting is environmentally safe and provides a good alternative to shopping at fast-fashion stores. Although it does take time to find the perfect item, once someone has found the right piece, it’s like they’ve struck gold.