Why secondhand is my first choice
One of my recent work outfits was probably cheaper than your last haircut. Ballerina flats from a national discount chain: $15. Shift dress from a local thrift store: $8. Designer blazer from the same store: $13. With a few accessories, makeup, and shiny braids (I admit that I spend $260 every two months for a laborintensive style), I looked professional.
This from someone who earns six figures.
Shopping for clothing at thrift stores, which I’ve done on and off since college, is now a priority. For me, it’s a small way to save money with fickle gas and food prices to worry about, my sons’ sports fees and tuition payments, and something or other falling apart in our 61year-old house. On a deeper level, buying secondhand clothes also gives me an emotional boost, because I know I’ve helped the environment and thumbed my nose at nonstop advertising telling me to buy brand new stuff I don’t need.
When I really do need something, I first check closets and drawers for a workable substitute. If I don’t have decent options on hand, I think thrift. A flood of more affluent consumers in these stores may buy up a lot, leaving fewer high-quality deals for people who can’t afford to shop elsewhere. So I buy only what I will immediately use. I don’t stockpile just because it’s cheap.
COVID-19 pandemic constraints helped fuel the popularity — and inventory — of secondhand stores. Stuck at home, many people decluttered and donated. Online influencers bragged about their trendy catches, reducing the social stigma of buying pre-loved clothes. Others scooped up the best thrift-store deals and resold them online at a profit. With more middle-income shoppers in the aisles, some stores also raised prices, leading to complaints about the gentrification of secondhand shops.
Me? I simply want to stretch my dollars, look chic, and work harder to help protect a crumbling planet.
In the 2019 track “Ballin,’” rapper Roddy Ricch boasts: “All this designer on my body got me drip drip,” meaning stylish. It’s an earworm. I rap along. It jumpstarts my aging legs before a workout. But there’s a downside to fashion obsession that’s not so cool.
The fashion industry, according to the United Nations Environment Programme, “is one of the largest contributors to the climate and ecological crisis. It is nature-intensive, reliant on fossil fuels, polluting throughout its value chain, and wasteful to the extreme.” The U.N. also says “the world’s consumers are buying more clothes and wearing them for less time than ever before, discarding garments as fast as trends shift.” Much of the load winds up in landfills and on the shorelines of some of the poorest countries.
Synthetics Anonymous, a group that monitors fast fashion’s fossil fuel consumption, released a damning report last December. “The disparity between fashion’s sustainability marketing, their lack of action on phasing out fossil-fuel-derived fabrics, and meaningful climate targets should be a call to action for policymakers to put in place ambitious legislation.”
In the meantime, thrift is having a moment.
Two friends often tell me about deals they’ve snagged on authentic used designer clothing and purses from an online merchant. “It was only $300 instead of $1,200!” Hmm. To each her own. I prefer much cheaper gems found among junk. When someone compliments my used apparel, I might gush, “It was only $10!”
I’m proud to say this habit has rubbed off on a few of my sons, to a certain extent. Sneakerheads all, they’re not into secondhand shoes (unless they’re from a relative or really sporty). But one recent weekend, as I hunted for suit jackets for myself, I spotted two of them combing through thrift store racks like pros with no hint of self-consciousness. They each found multiple items for school, including a $7 “Billionaire Boys Club” T-shirt. I couldn’t understand why that item was so special.
“This is actually a designer brand,” said the returning college student, who also described it as “rare” and worth $70 (he checked online).
Ah. High fashion.
To me, it still looks like a ho-hum T-shirt. But I smiled, confident that its new owner will wear it until it’s at least a few rips and holes away from being a rag.