What thrifting has taught me

Thrifting Project Team
Aug 13, 2020
3 min read

Since I’m a teenager who loves her mom’s jeans and like scavenging for clothes that’ll suit my style, of course there will be a temptation of going to the mall and spending over 200 dollars on small pieces that I might not even wear after 5 months. My style is ~weird~ sometimes I wake up and think about wearing a baggy shirt with some plain black leggings or Some days I just want to wear my white air forces with ripped boyfriend jeans and a simple crop top that will tie the whole outfit together.

Eventually I look at my “go to” outfits and think about how inexpensive they were, sooner or later people begin to ask me where I got my clothes, they may assume that I bought them off at American eagle, Urban outfitters, Hollister, H&M, misguided or even fashion nova, but my response is quite simple, “I hand picked them out of my local goodwill store!” When those words come out of my mouth, some of their expressions are just...priceless! I even surprise myself at times of the amount of clothing in my wardrobe that has been thrifted or are just handy downs, and the best thing of all is that I didn’t have to kill my wallet on these great pieces that I got

worth so much more than some of my old clothes that I’ve bought from fast fashion stores. Thrifting has opened my eyes to see how you don’t necessarily have to spend so much money on clothes that you might get bored of or not suit your style within months.

But one thing to keep in mind is that thrifting is important to those who can not afford expensive clothes and rely on the majority in handy downs in their life. We have to be aware of our privilege in our clothes, many don’t see how easy one can buy a 300 dollar necklace compared to someone who may not even be able to afford a 20 dollar t-shirt, thrifting may have been a great alternative for them and have seen how good of a bargain they can get for an entire outfit. It’s crucial to know how many need to thrift when others just want to thrift, but of course, there are also other options such as purchasing fromthrift stores online like depop, thredUP, poshmark and Etsy!

There are always other ways to get inexpensive clothes but that is just one example that many have been using throughout this time since we are going through a pandemic, but soon Goodwils, Salvation Army stores and more local thrift shops will hopefully open. Thrifting also hasn’t made me realize of how beneficial it is for my wardrobe but it’s also helping our one and only earth that we all live on, and obviously we have to do our part in keeping our biodiversity in check by not polluting our environment and preventing sending off pesticides, dye, drying substances and toxic waste within our waters. Educating ourselves with this issue is detrimental since nearly everyone wears clothes every single day, the least we can do is to know how to help or decrease the amount of waste people make out of their clothes each year! Now labor work, this is also an issue that revolves around this topic, many may know how the young youth in poor regions are forced in front of sewing machines to benefit and help grow fast fashion industries by the day.

This issue became more well known when Rana Plaza in Dhaka, Bangladesh in May of 2013 collapsed and killed about 1,100 workers including injuring more than 2,000 of them. Protests were planned and declared justice for the workers who were not only forced into labor work but killed while doing their job. Sadly, many of these voices slowly were silenced with the work of fast fashion industries and taking charge of what some of the people were saying, many took a blind eye and avoided the issue. Millions of people go out and buy from these fast fashion stores and have no clue of the countless negative effects these industries have done in our world.

If people began to acknowledge and spread awareness to this awful act that is pressed on to young children & young adults, maybe there will be less numbers each year of people purchasing from these industries. Thrifting has taught me about how recycling clothes is bettering our environment, how the young youth needs our help to spread awareness about their work labor they are put through mostly everyday, made me realize how valuable our biodiversity is and how much clothes I do not need from fast fashion stores that I’ve bought years ago & we can be part of the solution rather than the problem. In conclusion, get yourself a nice t-shirt from your local thrift store! < 3