Unethical thrifting: an oxymoron
Aili Forster, Staff Writer
Nicole Craine/ Contributer
As sustainability in fashion becomes more and more prominent, thrifting and second-hand shopping seem to be the most popular ways to shop ethically. Aside from traditional thrift shops or charity shops like Salvation Army or Goodwill, online thrift stores like Thred-up and Depop have risen to popularity in recent years. Clothing brands like Levi’s have also started reselling old jeans under their second hand website. Generally, the concept of second-hand shopping seems ethical and helpful to the environment. One can re-wear old clothes, don’t support fast fashion companies and can buy tons of clothes for a cheap price. In reality, thrifting becoming more trendy leads to wealthy people overconsuming, taking away from people who can only afford thrift store clothes. In addition, many Depop sellers also sell thrifted clothes at an extremely marked up price, making profit off of charity shops. So, while thrifting is good for the environment, there are ethical conflicts that come into play when a cheap and environmentally friendly substitute for shopping becomes trendy. Environmental issues are hard enough to tackle outside of fashion, and while it is better to buy second hand rather than new, not consuming at all is the best option.
Massive “clothing hauls” featured on social media apps like TikTok and Youtube have been popular for a long time, but mainly consisted of fast fashion brands like Shein, Forever 21 and YesStyle. In these hauls, people would show their clothes collected from a certain brand or going along with a certain theme, often with over 20 clothing items at a time. Now, thrift hauls have become another branch of this content category, and while they are better than the old Forever 21 and Shein hauls, they still promote buying large amounts of “new” clothes. Wealthy people are buying clothes meant for underprivileged people who cannot afford any other option.
With thrift stores getting more customers, some have started marking up prices due to high demand. Low-income families rely on the cheap prices that thrift stores offer, so marking up prices would make it harder for low-income families to get necessary clothing items like jackets for the winter or shoes.
Over the past few years, online thrifting apps like Depop have taken the place of in-person thrifting, largely due to how time saving it is. Instead of spending time going through racks of clothes, apps like Depop make it easy to find a clothing item by just searching for it. Depop sellers can sell old clothes for cheap and make a small profit. Although, according to their seller handbook on the website, Depop currently charges a ten percent fee on the sale price. While Depop started out as an app to sell old clothes, recently more and more users have started using it as more of a business, selling thrifted trendy clothes for an extremely marked up price. Sam Kaplan (’25), through selling old clothes on Depop, reflects on this sentiment.
“I think, since depop is about selling old clothes, buying thrifted clothes and marking them up is a total scam, and it’s wrong in so many ways, ” Kaplan said.
Finding a cheap and ethical substitute for fast fashion shopping can seem enticing at first. It can be a creative outlet or way to experiment with fashion as well. Instead of buying clothing that follows micro-trends from Urban Outfitters or Brandy Melville, thrifting trendy clothing doesn’t support fast fashion and is cheaper. Still, this should not be a reason for having thrifting be a hobby. Often the problem with buying trendy clothing is that the trends cycle out quickly, and clothing gets thrown away once something is out of trend. The same thing happens even with thrifted trends. Once the item is not on trend anymore, it will probably be thrown out again. Unless someone re-donates the item, the clothing piece will be thrown out, just like the item from Urban Outfitters would be.
Increasing the price on an originally cheap clothing item is morally wrong, especially considering that these clothes come from a charity shop. These sellers essentially make a profit by exploiting charity shops which exist to help people in need, not for monetary gain. Shopping second-hand is better than supporting fast fashion companies, but it should not be a way to over consume or profit off of thrift stores. It is great that sustainability in fashion and general is becoming popular, including thrifting. However, just because it is better than fast fashion, thrifting should not become a hobby.
