A Race To The Bins

Let’s remember who thrift stores are for. 

By Sophia Ong

Photograph by Mia Bianco

It’s difficult to be on social media and avoid the rapidly growing “thrift culture” being cultivated online. 

Influencers stand in their sleek Los Angeles apartments and show off their bags upon bags of thrift store finds, and their voiceovers detail journeys to the Goodwill bins where they describe these “insane finds.”

Not only am I a consumer of this kind of content, but I’m also a consumer of thrifted clothing. I was recently looking around a Goodwill and saw a tired-looking woman with four children shopping for shampoo, as I held a $5 shirt I didn’t think was that cute but was just so cheap. It was then when I began to ask myself if thrifting had consequences I hadn’t let myself consider. 

Thrifting is meant to be the sustainable option; clothes go to new owners instead of the landfill, and people shop clothes already in the consumer cycle, rather than directly stimulating textile factories. However, the cheap nature of thrift stores can encourage overconsumption; thrifting can extend the life cycle of a piece of clothing, but ultimately, the majority of it is still ending up in landfills. 

Thrift stores were first developed by charity groups in the late 1800s as a resource for low-income and immigrant families, selling everything at affordable prices. Yet, at many thrift stores, the aisles seem overtaken by affluent young people who are there for hobby, rather than necessity. 

The popular practice of buying items cheap to resell them on sites like Depop have contributed to this consumer shift. A suit jacket that a reseller might spot as a Depop money-maker might be the jacket that another man needs for a wedding or job interview. 

As a result, there’s been a widespread trend of thrift stores raising their prices to accommodate demand, pushing its use as a resource for the poor to the side and adjusting for a shifting economy. 

This article is not meant to denounce thrifting. Buying secondhand has significant environmental advantages, but as a society, we must be careful not to transform thrifting into another source of faster, cheaper fashion. 

Respect thrift stores as the resources they are and understand that their primary function is to keep goods affordable, not to populate your closet with as many pieces as possible.