The bins. Vintage. Goodwill. Secondhand. These are all places South students think of when they think of thrift stores. While thrifting seems to have been on the rise for the past couple of years, thrift stores were not always the go-to clothing stores. During the pandemic, there was an extreme influx of online shopping, which also introduced an era of micro-trends, which are trends that last for only a short amount of time before quickly going out of style. While online shopping proved to be a “cheap and accessible” choice for many, the cultural rise of thrifting has opened people’s eyes to the wondrous world that is secondhand shopping.
Thrifting has now become not only the new “trend,” but also a popular activity that many students at South do for fun. Frances Pickar, a junior at South, has been thrifting her whole life and says it’s something she really enjoys doing, “I feel like it’s really fun to find stuff through secondhand, cause it makes you feel like you worked for it.” She says that her old shopping habits were very much impacted by trends, “In like 2019 I kind of glorified Shein and Amazon and just like fresh Target clothes because that was just where people got their clothes from.” Now that she is older she feels that she has developed a little bit more of her own personal style.
Zora Bael-Cyr, a senior, says her parents always took her thrifting, and she has thrifted nearly every piece of clothing she owns. Bael-Cyr says that she thinks she became a lot more interested in clothing after 2019, “Like before I would kind of just wear whatever and then I became more aware of it, so I wanted to buy my own clothes and I got a lot more of them.” Bael-Cyr agrees that the trend right now is “to be sustainable and to thrift,” which she thinks is a positive thing, and she hopes that it doesn’t shift anytime soon. “I think that thrifting is a really great opportunity, the popularity could make it a little more expensive, but I think that it’s good in the long run.” Her favorite thrift stores are the Goodwill bins and 4evr Sale’ing on Bloomington Ave.
The environmental impact of our clothing sources is something that not only Pickar and Bael-Cyr are aware of but also something that Liam Delaney, a senior at South, is conscious of when it comes to his clothes. Delaney makes the point that sites like Shein provide “cheap, low-quality clothing” and prefers to shop second-hand as he recognizes the environmental impact that buying new, especially from fast-fashion brands can have. Walter Delong, a junior, makes his clothing consumption’s environmental impact smaller by not participating in much shopping at all. “I haven’t really shopped for clothes in a while, I’ve kind of been avoiding it.” In terms of the quality of clothing, Mila Beitz, a senior at South thinks that the kind of extreme hyperconsumption of clothing is a result of people “not understanding the value of high-quality clothing.” She also notices that it can be really hard to even know when brands are actually sustainable and higher quality, “It’s really difficult because even brands that are really expensive that you’ll find at the mall now that used to be higher quality, you find that the quality has gone way down and you are spending like $50 on this jacket and it doesn’t even last very long.”
Resellers on platforms such as Depop and Poshmark have also impacted the thrifting atmosphere and environment. Delong says, “People are going to the bins, not even for their own personal clothing, but they find stuff, post it, and resell it for a lot more money.” He is personally not a fan, “It’s turned into a business at this point for them and I’m finding it harder and harder to find stuff when I do go thrifting.” Beitz says despite some of the negative effects that resellers have had on her own thrifting experience such as the price increases, she likes to utilize Depop to buy pieces that she “knows are going to be more expensive anyways”. She thinks that these resellers are often easy to spot, that they “can be kind of intimidating” and that it can feel like they are being greedy. Beitz also reflects on the effects that the popularity of resell culture has had on specifically people who really do need to shop at the thrift store for their clothing. “If all the prices are going up because these places know they can make more money, it’s unfair for the people who actually need these clothing items.”
While trends are constantly changing and forming, the recent thrifting trend is one that should stick. Shopping second hand is more environmentally friendly, it can help you to develop your own personal style, it is often more affordable, and it can be a fun activity to do. In a world full of endless clothing choices, choosing to thrift whether online or in person, let’s all hope it stays in style forever.
