For people that have been thrifting for a long time, it’s no secret that there are some amazing gems to be found. High quality denim, truly vintage silhouettes, and unique pieces that have the potential to completely transform your look. But, what’s often forgotten about is that for many people, thrifting isn’t a choice, it’s a necessity.
New clothes bought in malls and retails stores are generally not an option for a large percentage of low-income and working class people in communities, thus thrift stores were and are one of the few resources available to remedy that socio-economic disparity.
Before it was mainstream, many people carried quite negative or elitist attitudes about thrifting. Often considering new clothes as “cleaner” and undoubtedly superior with regard to fashion trends.
We’ll interject here just to clear something up
They’re not saying thrifting for your clothing is a bad thing. In fact, thrifting is one of the most sustainable ways to consume fashion and textiles — it keeps clothing in the cycle of use and consumption much longer than fast fashion, and it puts less money into producing more and new clothing.
The point of this article is to highlight the other side of thrifting culture, the one that’s often ignored or forgotten. It is to highlight the complexity of the situation at hand so that they may make the most educated and considerate consumption choices possible.
So, what does Gentrification even mean?
Gentrification is primarily used to refer to the development and alteration of lower-income neighborhoods through the process of moving wealth and affluence into them through businesses and non-native residents.
This process changes the character of the neighborhoods and often displaces its historical residents. They’ve seen this occur in Brooklyn, NY, Regent Park and Cabbage Town in Toronto, San Francisco, CA, and many other urban cities and neighborhoods across the US and Canada.
Gentrification is harmful and has an insidious potential to push people out of their neighborhoods by means of wealth disparity and making things like housing and food security inaccessible for those who cannot afford the favored standard of living purported by the wealthier constituents.
Another angle that should be examined within the thrifting paradigm is the world of online resale — let’s chat about it
For a lot of entrepreneurial-minded young people, sites like Depop and Poshmark have become very lucrative platforms. Dually, they’ve created a rich resale market of second-hand goods, specifically clothing and shoes, that rely heavily on second-hand and thrift stores such as Salvation Army, Goodwill, Value Village, and Talize.
Where these stores were once one of the few low-cost shopping options for lower-income people, they are now a competitive arena for resellers to find the best resealable clothing and turn a profit.
As Zhu and Josic (2019) point out, “thrift stores were initially designed as charities for low-income communities to have access to affordable clothing, yet they’ve increasingly become an outlet for small businesses and resellers to turn a profit.”
It’s important to tap into the fact that charities themselves are getting involved in the profit game
This increased demand, and high volume shopping from thrift stores has created an opportunity for stores like Value Village and Goodwill to capitalize by increasing their prices.
Anyone who has shopped second-hand over the last 5–7 years can tell you that $3 t-shirts have become $7 t-shirts and the cumulative effect of this kind of inflation “makes thrifting less cost-effective for those who rely on thrifting for their sole source of clothing” (Hooper 2019).
Like most things related to money and consumption, this kind of phenomenon creates a cycle. If you’re reading this article, and thinking “well, I shop at thrift stores as a conscious environmental choice”, you should factor in this consideration.
The concept of a mass and incessant ‘thrift haul’ is antithetical to the whole idea of sustainability, because you’re still consuming more clothing and textiles with the added duality of limiting options for those members of your community that rely on secondhand shopping. People can’t and shouldn’t shop thrift stores the same way they’ve been shopping fast fashion.
So where IS the best place to shop for clothing, and how do you go about it?
Alternatively, they could do shopping at ethical and sustainable brands. However, they have to acknowledge the evident inaccessibility of these garments.
Take this from a thick-thighed previous serial buyer of American Eagle jeans: invest in staple pieces that will last you for a long time, as opposed to looking at clothing as something disposable and seasonal. Even more so, treat each garment like an investment.
Whether it be a garment you purchased at an expensive sustainable shop or something you picked up at the thrift stores in Panama City Beach, FL, all garments should be treated as equally valuable and not purchased without intention or forethought.
Steve Clark 