Gentrification of Thrifting

To quote Macklemore, “I'ma take your grandpa's style, I'ma take your grandpa's style. No, for real, ask your grandpa, can I have his hand-me-downs?”  

If you’ve not been on the Internet recently let me fill you in; thrifting has become insanely popular. Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, have single-handedly popularised the act of buying used clothes for a cheap price and restyling them in a way that looks ‘cool.’ 

Thrifting lets you be ‘trendy’ on a budget and gives young people that sense of individuality they so desperately crave. Lyst, an online fashion shop, documented that in September alone, there was a 104% increase in online fashion searches for second-hand related keywords such as ‘vintage.’

Sam Brown, a second-year Goldsmiths University student, has been thrifting for three years. “I mostly thrift because it's a way to get nicer clothes cheaper than buying them new. Also, it’s better for the planet,” he says. 

Considered the most sustainable way of buying new clothes, ‘slow fashion’ is less detrimental to the environment and could be one of the reasons why thrifting has become so popular. As a buyer, you are preventing unnecessary waste of energy and money on the production of new clothes so are reducing your own carbon footprint. 

Dr Lucie Middlemiss, an Associate Professor in Sustainability at the University of Leeds, believes it's actually societal pressures that make us rely on fast fashion more. “Trends now change much more regularly, reinforcing and intensifying the culture of novelty around fashion,” she says. “The more textiles that we produce and use for clothing, the higher the environmental impacts across the board. Environmental impacts occur throughout the lifetime of the product, associated with production, distribution, sales, washing and disposal. Fast fashion increases the impacts across most of these stages.” 

To combat the environmental issues surrounding fast fashion there needs to be a shift towards elongating the lifespan of our clothes.

“We can play a role in lengthening the useful life of clothing, in order to reduce the amount of materials that are consumed. This means wearing things for longer, washing them less, repurposing clothing, sharing or borrowing items, buying second hand, learning repair skills so that things last longer, and buying higher quality items to last longer. It also involves us challenging the expectations around how we should dress – resisting the pressure to not wear the same thing at two events,” she says. 

Thrifting originally became popular in the 1960s as part of the Hippie movement but didn’t become popular again for another 20 years. Necessity rather than fashion fuelled its resurgence; the working classes turned to thrifting as a way of obtaining clothes cheaply. For them, thrifting wasn’t a conscious environmental choice but an economic necessity.

Over the years thrifting has become gentrified. Gentrification, as defined by the Oxford dictionary, refers to the process of improving somebody's manners, way of life or activity so that they become acceptable to people of a higher social class.

Sunaina Jacob, a research intern at Fashion Roundtable, a fashion think-tank, has written her own article on the gentrification of thrifting. “Since there is an increased influx of people coming in to thrift, most thrift stores have definitely increased their marked prices, where it is often higher than even some online high-street fast fashion brands. This has definitely made thrifting not a great option for the people who require it,” she says. 

The gentrification of thrifting has made it inaccessible to the working class, who have been thrifting their own clothes for years. Clothes prices in some thrift stores have also increased which means you are buying fewer clothes for a higher price. 

Thrift shops aren’t running out of stock due to their increased popularity, in fact, the American Environmental Protection Agency in 2012 reported 84 per cent of all clothing donated to thrift stores and donation centres ended up either being incinerated or dumped as they are unwanted, meaning that thrift shops are running out of the more ‘desirable’ clothes. 

“A lot of people tend to pick out the best and most “aesthetic” clothes available in the thrift stores, taking away the option of actual good clothes for those who have no option but to buy from them,” Jacobs says. “It is also true that thrift stores and charity shops are always getting more donations and there’s always new stuff to go through.”

Sam tries to thrift shop as little as possible. “I think commercial thrifting shops are out of reach for people with little disposable income. I've only felt guilty when buying things from charity shops which isn't something I've done very often,” he says.

Celebrities and influencers can also be blamed for the gentrification of thrifting. Emma Chamberlain, a 19-year-old American social media influencer, latest thrift haul video got over four million views in three months.

“I’ve seen countless movies where the privileged mean girls have dragged the girl who shops at the local thrift store. But now, it’s sort of the trend to find these simple, unique, cheap items in the stores,” Jacobs says, “Even several supermodels like Bella Hadid have drawn attention to thrifting and glorified it as the new unique and perhaps even “woke” thing to do.”

The development of social media has also encouraged thrifting to enter the mainstream. TikTok, the video-sharing platform, started a trend called ‘Thrift Flipping.’ Users are buying cheap clothes from second-hand shops and modifying it in a way that makes it more desirable, they will then go on to sell it for a higher markup. 

“I do think a lot of people have begun using this tag of “vintage” in order to pass off items and make a profit, especially on sites like Depop. In reality, they are just items that are from high street brands like Zara and are from collections only two years old,” Jacobs says, “It is definitely difficult to pinpoint whether they are authentically vintage or not.”

Thrifting, it seems, is a delicate balancing act. Ethically, the gentrification of thrifting can be seen as a good thing, as it's the most sustainable way of buying new clothes. “By giving back to them and donating...we protect the climate and reduce wastage, but also by offering the less privileged ways to benefit from their limited options at thrift stores,” Jacobs says. 

However, whilst Macklemore encouraged people to “pop some tags” in his 2012 hit song Thrift Shop, he probably didn’t think of the negative impact the gentrification of thrifting has on those who genuinely rely on it. For some thrifting is harmless fun, for others, it’s a much-needed lifeline.