Sophia Berglund grew up thrifting. When she was younger, her mother would take her to an assortment of Goodwills and Salvation Armys, and, together, they would shuffle through bins and racks to be able to find what she calls "buried treasure." Berglund's mother made a game out of thrifting—she wanted to bring joy and optimism to the fact that they were looking for quality garments to fit into their tight budget, Berglund says.
She’s now in her 20s and continues to play her mother’s thrifting game. Most of her wardrobe and apartment furniture consists of secondhand purchases, in which she takes great pride.
Berglund grew up in sunny Florida, so when she moved to the somewhat cooler Atlanta in 2020, she planned to go hunting for her "winter treasure," something she initially thought would be exciting. She visited close to 25 stores throughout the Atlanta area and found herself overwhelmed by the number of fast-fashion brands that were overtaking the store. Dismayed, Berglund recalls that "there were bins of stained Shein pieces and Fashion Nova shirts that were falling apart at their seams before the original tags had a chance to be removed." She says she drove countless hours hoping to find a store that would help her build her chic winter wardrobe and kept finding more and more fast-fashion instead of the cozy materials like cashmere, silk, and leather she used to source "pretty easily" as a child.
Berglund's experience is one that is becoming all too common in thrift stores. Fast fashion is infiltrating thrift stores faster than ever seen before. With the rise of platforms such as TikTok, trends are cycling out more quickly than ever, and buyers are getting rid of their pieces before wearing them so they can move on to the next weekly trend that has momentarily caught the attention of the internet.
Fast fashion accounts for 60 percent of fabric fibers now being synthetics that are derived from fossil fuels. In the United States alone, an estimated 11.3 million tons of textile waste end up in landfills yearly and are unable to decay because of the synthetics used. These synthetic fibers are contributing to an alarming amount of microplastics that are ending up in the ocean, glacier peaks, freshwater springs, and the drinking water of millions across the globe.
After years of innocently buying into the good deals and cute outfits that give them a momentary boost of serotonin, shoppers are learning of fast fashion’s downside thanks to the push for sustainability consciousness from environmental experts and advocates.
Some people donate their fast fashion because they feel guilty about owning it, while others do so because they keep up with internet trend cycles. By donating the fast fashion, people think they are rid of their previous sins against the environment, and this couldn't be further from the truth. Stores are taking on disturbing amounts of fast fashion, and the people who looked to second-hand shopping for quality are leaving these items behind, forcing the store to abandon the unlucky pieces in landfills.
With the push of sustainability at the forefront of people's minds come new designers who focus on creating new life from dead-stock fabrics. Still, they struggle to find pieces to bring new life to because of the fast-fashion overload in thrift stores.
October 17, 2022
The Rise of Fast Fashion in Second-Hand Stores
“A lot of pieces that I'm finding nowadays are very clearly just trash,” says Atlanta sustainable designer Aysegul Ikna. “The synthetic fibers make it extremely challenging, if not impossible, to repurpose. I cannot collect enough of the same material to make something purposeful and sustainable from most of these fast-fashion pieces. As someone whose small brand relies on thrifting, it's making me nervous.”
Ikna says that smaller thrift stores in the Atlanta area, in particular, are inundated by fast fashion because of the influx of inadequate donations that the shops receive and the lack of time and knowledge employees have to sift through and put the quality things out.
Despite her frustration, Ikna continues to utilize in-person thrifting to find unique patterns and pre-loved items for her designs. "There is something so fulfilling when I find what I need. It might take a little patience, but the result is something that I'm excited to implement into my designs," Ikna says.
Brooke Hettick, 27, owner of Brookie Babe Vtg, a Y2K-inspired Depop account, has been thrifting since she was 16. "I was hosting at a restaurant and found that I could get luxury pieces from the thrift store and still have money left over on my humble check from the restaurant," she says. Her hobby of thrifting grew into a business when she lost her job during the pandemic. Hettick has accumulated over 22,000 followers and has sold over 2,500 pieces since entering the resale market.
Hettick travels around the U.S. to find pieces and has noticed that most cities outside of Brooklyn and Portland, Ore., are being filled to the brim with fast-fashion brands like Zaful, Rome, and Shein. She said that having more fast fashion in these stores makes sourcing for her business more complicated and less timely. She spends around 30 hours a week sourcing and brings home a few adequate pieces.
Hettick notes that she saw a shift in how much fast fashion was entering thrift stores during the pandemic, a time when people were purchasing online. Once thrift stores were able to operate, people donated their pieces to make room for more trend-relevant fast fashion.
Atlanta's Little Five-Points neighborhood used to be a haven for Hettick to thrift in because of how outlandish and fun the pieces she would gather would be. But now she has found that many of her old staple stores are being taken over by Spirit Halloween costume pieces and fast-fashion brands.
She continues to search for quality pieces for her customer base because she believes in making quality accessible and affordable for everyone. She is concerned about the environmental effects that fast fashion is responsible for and is one of the many resellers trying their best to showcase fun pieces to audiences to encourage them to buy things that don't have devastating effects on the world.
Clothing in landfill 2021