I love clothes. It feels good to wear beautiful things that fit well. It brings me joy to wear pretty florals and rich colors, and likewise to feel warm enough when it’s cold and cool enough when it’s warm. I’ve been wearing linen pants this week as the temps have finally started going up, and the breeze through a pair of linen pants on a sunny day is truly delightful.
For the past few years I’ve made an effort to buy secondhand clothing instead of new whenever possible. When I do buy new, I try to stick to ethically-made clothes in natural fibers, which can be a bit pricey and they should be. A new shirt should never cost ten dollars, and few things irritate me more than seeing a review where somebody claims they didn’t get their money’s worth from a $20 sweater. Ma’am, if you put three of your fingers in that sweater one time then you got your money’s worth. Having spent the past eight months crocheting most of a sweater, something I will likely never do again, and having watched my husband knit a few sweaters, I can assure you that no sweater should cost anything close to $20 simply due to the labor that goes into it. A $20 sweater is going to be junk and it should be junk. And we shouldn’t be buying junk and supporting the constant cranking out of new junk, so please at least just know all of that if you still decide to buy the $20 sweater. Of course, the high prices of ethically made garments are not in everyone’s budget. Fortunately there’s a nearly inexhaustible supply of clothing on the secondhand market.
Whether new or used, I also try to follow the rule of buying only things I see myself still wearing in five years. This means avoiding trends I’ll no longer want to wear in five years (although shopping secondhand is a great way to try trends), avoiding low-quality pieces unlikely to last five years, and choosing only items that complement my existing wardrobe well enough that I’m unlikely to decide to get rid of it on account of never actually wearing it. With thrifted items, though, I’m willing to accept that sometimes something that seemed really great might not end up working out, and I don’t feel so bad since I was simply giving new life to an already-existing item anyway. In that case, I find a new home for the item and move on.
I don’t actually love the act of going to a store and browsing, and with a toddler yanking things off hangers it’s damn near impossible to do, so I often turn to Poshmark and Mercari when I’m looking for something. I’m a big fan of these platforms, as well as eBay, because they help unite used items with people who want to continue their use. I also sell on Poshmark and Mercari when I decide something I’ve purchased doesn’t work for me.
But I have found so many INCREDIBLE items secondhand, and this winter I cashed in some Poshmark earnings on some things I’ve been having a lot of fun wearing. So in the spirit of celebrating secondhand fashion, here the little darlings are:
Usually my interactions on these secondhand platforms are very positive, with lovely people enthusiastic about keeping things out of landfill. I save packing materials and reuse them when I sell something, and people often send nice messages about that. Not every interaction is wonderful, though. Occasionally you run into somebody who inexplicably feels entitled to a luxury shopping experience at half the price. After never receiving a negative review before, I recently received the following review after selling somebody a new-with-tags shirt I bought secondhand but didn’t like the fit of:
I can say a lot about this woman. I can say she was a pain in the ass from the very beginning, sending me message after message asking what the lowest price I’d take was, and then asking for a lower price even than that. I can say her decision to keep the item rather than dispute the purchase is at odds with her grossly inaccurate review (still three stars though!). I can say her desire for brand-new packaging means she has absolutely zero regard for the environmental impact of anything she does. I can say she has nothing but disdain for the unhoused. But mostly, I can say this review is the most incredible self-own I’ve ever seen. It honestly could have been lifted from an I Think You Should Leave sketch. I only hope that, in time, she’s able to enjoy and love transactions again.
Denise Resting 