Thrifting has now become a preferred way of shopping for clothing. The resale market is expected to be worth around $350 billion by 2027, according to a report done by thredUP.
Apps like Depop, Poshmark and eBay have been able to grow the online thrifting market making second-hand items accessible to anyone. Thrifted items have now become a statement in many wardrobes.
With a fast increase in second-hand shopping, many wonder how the market will change in the future.
Natalie Rosales, president of the Students in Fashion club, said that 98% of her current wardrobe is thrifted. She believes that the current rise in thrifting started with Gen Z’s awareness of the overconsumption of fast fashion and environmental concerns.
“The fashion industry is the problem, not the straws, not the plastic bottles, it’s the industry themselves that are the problem,” Rosales said.
With the rise of the resale market, the prices for regular thrifting have gone up significantly. Second-hand resellers have become a problem in the market charging high prices for cheaper second-hand clothing.
Even though thrifting is a sustainable alternative to shopping fast fashion, overconsumption of thrifting can be a problem.
Rosales believes that the overconsumption of thrifting is happening because she sees people becoming addicted to finding items or only shopping to resell.
“They’re like going to thrift stores, I would say, with bad intentions because they’re reselling clothes that were free,” Rosales said. “These clothes were free. This is not fair. The thrift store was meant for lower class people, and now not even lower classes are able to purchase from thrift stores.”
Rosales believes that the thrifting hype will eventually crash in the future when thrift stores are only filled with old fast fashion pieces.
Fashion design major Cristian Velasquez has been an avid thrifter since childhood. He sees thrifting culture more as a hunt to see who can find the best items for the best prices.
“I realized that, like growing up back when I was in middle school and high school, we always used to try to flex on each other. We would say I got this brand hoodie and its fire, but I got it for $20. I’d say that’s a big flex. You know, buy something that’s like crazy, and it was $20,” said Velasquez.
He believes that Gen Z prefers thrifting now, not just because it’s eco-friendly, but the nostalgia of finding old pieces from the past.
“Some people like to look back to a certain item from a past body of work. We’re used to a factor of nostalgia sometimes where, oh, I wish I had this item at that time,” said Velasquez.
This yearning for nostalgia was shown by the resurgence of the early 2000s style, an era that Gen Z grew up with. He believes that the second-hand industry is important and will only grow in popularity.
Jonathan Meza, public relations major and member of Students in Fashion, thinks that the future of thrifting will be more of a balance where people can shop for new and second-hand items.
“Let’s just imagine they open up a new store where like half is like new stuff that no one’s ever used, and then the other half of the store is just like all bought and used thrifting. I feel like something like that would happen,” Meza said.
Upcycling has started to become popular as another option in sustainable clothing. It has been found that 50% of fabric can be upcycled into something new.
Meza believes that upcycling could have the potential to open new doors to more sustainable options.
“I think it’s like actually pretty cool that this goes on [upcycling] and might open like new roads for other stuff in other, in fashion to kind of do the same thing,” Meza said.
Rosales also believes that upcycling could be an alternative to thrifting and would rather purchase upcycle pieces rather than thrift now.
“I personally think upcycling is better than thrifting just because you use the clothes yourself and you make them a different style,” Rosales said.