Recycling Trends and Reusing Clothes

Styles and trends recycle. Why can’t clothes do the same?

In the past, each decade has been unique.

The 50s were full of poofy skirts and slimming tops. The 70s were a mixture of flared jeans and patterned blouses. You can easily identify each past decade based on the clothes people wore. Today, however, we are not defined by one fashion uniform. You see people wearing every decades’ trend because we are now driven by self-expression. We aspire for uniqueness in our taste, but are often mirrored by others because fashion is replicated. Retail stores are filled with thousands of the same pieces waiting to be bought and sold to millions of people. This eliminates personal self-expression, and although you may envy the person who found that single, gorgeous pair of pants before you did, thrift stores promote uniqueness, and they reuse the pants, shirts, or dresses you admire from past decades in a sustainable manner. You can find one-of-a-kind clothes that won't match with someone you see walking down the street. Thrift stores don’t remake trends with new fabric, they address the timelessness of exceptional pieces that not only brighten a person’s closet, but also keep our landfill from having more unnecessary garbage.

Thrifting allows for the opportunity to find your own, unique form of self-expression while mixing the 70s with the 90s, or creating your own take on y2k. Fashion is timeless, so don’t throw away someone else’s opportunity for self-expression. You may be done with the 80s shoulder pads, but someone else is just discovering them.