The Thrift Shift: The Rise of Thrifting Today
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
What once started as a way to save money by purchasing secondhand goods has turned into a worldwide market, and today’s youth are fascinated by the world of thrifting. From authentic 2000s handbags to jackets from the 90s, fashion from every era and corner of the earth can be found at a local thrift shop, on a reselling app, or online boutique for only a fraction of its selling price. How has this growing shift changed how much consumers buy? Why has this shift happened? Read to find out!
One reason why thrifting has risen is because of the awareness surrounding the effects of the fast fashion. Fast fashion refers to brands who quickly create new clothes at a low cost, often carrying trendy styles as they make hundreds- in some cases thousands of new designs every day. For example, one of today’s leading fast fashion websites, SHEIN is estimated to make over 2,000 new designs on an average day, the company raking in over 41.8 billion dollars just last year. However, through social media, consumers have been able to see the unethical production of their clothes, the poor quality, and the environmental effects of their cheap purchases that fill landfills with tons of polyester, leading to consumers wanting to push against these billion dollar companies: enter thrifting.
While fast fashion is often regarded as one of the cheapest ways to buy clothes, thrifting matches that price and provides long lasting quality. You can often find secondhand cotton shirts, linen clothes, and leather bags at similar prices as their fast fashion dupes of lower quality. Thanks to online reselling apps such as Depop, consumers can find exact goods to purchase at reasonable prices.
This interest in thrifting has led to significant change across several statistics. Over 62% of GenZ went thrifting last year, leading to the Bureau of Labor Statistics to include secondhand purchases into consumer price tracking. Nonprofits such as Goodwill divert tons of pounds of clothes into their secondhand stores instead of landfills. The graph below from ThredUp, another thrifting site shows how a shift in purchases can change our world, one thrift at a time!
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