Have you ever wondered about the history of thrift stores and how they became so popular? Before you start searching thrift near me on your phone, our team wants to share how thrift stores started.
Thrift Stores are typically shops that raise money for charities and nonprofit organizations. These kinds of stores depend on donations from people around their communities.
People can make donations at drop-off locations around a city. Some thrift stores, like Thrift World, also provide at-home pick-up. They usually accept donations like clothing, furniture, shoes, toys, electronics, home decor, etc. People tend to believe that resale shops and thrift stores are the same things. However, they are different. Resale shops are stores that sell merchandise that has been bought from individuals and resold. As stated above, thrift stores receive their merchandise from donors.
However, popular social media accounts like bestdressed , which showcase thrift-shopping finds and DIYs, have conversely increased the popularity of buying second-hand in order to maintain a trendy image on a tight budget. In addition, online second-hand resale platforms like ThredUP and mobile resale apps like Depop, have supported the shift towards thrifting. Thrift stores, with their one-of-a-kind donated pieces, therefore cater to these desires in a way that mainstream brands cannot.
All this seems like cause for celebration or, at the very least, lends some support to any self-perceived moral superiority held by Gen Z.
However, what does all this mean for low-income consumers for whom the concept of thrifting was created in the first place? The rising popularity of thrifting among more wealthy consumers as an alternative to buying from sustainable and ethical fashion brands reduces the already limited options available to low-income communities when it comes to clothing. Thrifting no longer carries strong taboos of uncleanliness and poverty as it had in the past. So, in the name of eco-consciousness, many demographics that could afford to splurge on high-quality, low-impact purchases are deciding to thrift instead.
This means there are less quality items left on the thrift store shelves for those who truly have no other affordable options, say, for buying professional attire that could mean the difference between impressing or crashing at a job interview.
In addition, larger sizes are rare in thrift stores, just as they are in brand-name stores. Since the poor are disproportionately more obese than the rich , one has to be especially conscious of the effect of thrifting on such pieces.
For all their online hype, DIY-ing clothing projects popularised online by creators like coolirpa often rely on thrifting plus-size clothing and crafting them into more stylish pieces meant for thin bodies. Such that, even if one does place these newly styled items back on the thrift market, they now serve a considerably smaller and more privileged demographic. Furthermore, many individuals exploit their online popularity to make businesses out of reselling thrifted items at marked-up prices.
Depop is notorious for this—some of its most popular users, who started out simply revamping their wardrobe on the cheap, now go thrifting exclusively to find items to resell for a profit on the app.
Unique and vintage items at affordable prices targeted towards underprivileged and marginalized communities then end up on an online marketplace that serves both consumers looking to dress respectably on a budget and those who are invested in finding a unique look for any price.
The time and energy invested by such users into finding rare pieces and curating styles warrants a markup in prices, similar to sneaker resale markets where individuals like Josh Luber stand in queues for days to buy limited edition shoes and resell them for a profit.
However, the moral question of how high that profit should be allowed to go requires serious thought, considering that such activity excludes lower-income communities from products which they otherwise had access to. Wanting to find vintage items from secondhand stores is not as modern of an idea as you might think. As early as the s, many people started to go to thrift stores in search of vintage couture items. That trend of finding something beautiful from back in the day has carried thrift stores all the way through into the 21st century.
Nowadays, the process of buying secondhand from thrift stores is even easier thanks to the Internet. Check out our thrift shops in Philadelphia if you want to get in on the fun and savings of buying secondhand. They staged fashion shows to convince customers that attractive clothing could be found within. They cut prices to get people in the door. And slowly, they removed the stigma of secondhand goods. Today, arguments for thrift shopping include environmental friendliness and even refusing to participate in a consumer system built on fast fashion, sweatshop labor and unfair labor practices.
But the very stores that make that possible were created to teach people to shop—food for thought for your next trip to the thrift store. JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. By: Erin Blakemore. October 16, July 17, Share Tweet Email Print.
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