Should you shop at a thrift store if you can’t afford it?

If you’re thinking of bragging about your latest charity shop purchase, beware: an online debate is raging. It all started with a Depop seller who showcased her thrift store on TikTok, before listing the pieces on her online store. It begs the question: What is the ethics of selling a leather trench coat for £150 when you can buy it for much less?

It’s an issue called ‘savings customization’. As more people buy second hand, the demand is higher, and therefore the price increases. When you throw in “shop flippers” (who buy secondhand clothes and sell them for a profit), the argument and anger gets too much. One Twitter user declared Gen-Z thrift flippers to “own this generation.”

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Just as a rich person stocking up on baby formula or fruit and vegetables in times of scarcity and never leaving it for anyone else, a person on a Prada budget picking up a bargain at Oxfam can seem like shameful behavior – especially if those purchases are sold as such. A source of profit.

But if you look at the bigger picture, it is clear that we are not facing a clothing shortage. In contrast, charity shops and thrift stores are struggling at the seams, overwhelmed by donations and reselling 80 to 90 percent of what they receive to recyclers, often headed for the Global South.

A recent Market Change Foundation report estimates that an eye-watering 900 million garments will be shipped to Kenya from around the world in 2021 alone. Images of Chile’s Atacama Desert piled high with the failures of the Global North “The global trade in used clothing can be seen as a pressure release valve for the Global North’s addiction to fast fashion,” the statement said. Meanwhile, the Kantamanto market in Ghana receives 15 million garments every week. There, the situation is so dire that the non-profit The Orr Foundation has launched a campaign to end the colonization of waste disposal and shift the responsibility for waste disposal onto the shoulders of retailers who produce an estimated 150 billion worth of new clothes each year.

So we don’t have to worry about losing clothes. What about the argument that thrift – when they don’t need it – is taking good value clothes away from people who need them? After all, IKEA’s billionaire founder is famously frugal. I, myself, shop in charity shops out of financial need and choice – I think you can find better pieces, and it’s more unethical to buy existing clothes in bulk.

It should be noted that the primary role of charity shops in the UK – where many traders are located – is to support the work of charities. It’s their job to price items correctly to get the most money possible. And although charity shops have long attracted those on low incomes because second-hand generally means lower prices, by default, they are not a social clothing service. Having said that, the 22% increase in charity shop sales due to the cost of living suggests that there is still plenty to offer for those in the market for more affordable prices.

Special schemes like Sharewear, Cothing Collective and Sud & Booted exist to help people in clothing poverty, providing interview wear, warm essentials and contemporary clothing that allows for style, self-expression and dignity. These clothes are not being copied; They go directly to the people they want. And despite this support, perhaps the fury over the fur coat will be more useful in combating the injustices that lead to clothing poverty and exclusion.

Meanwhile, charity shops are arguably a thriving, money-making arm of the fashion industry. And it’s an arm that needs to be extended and embraced by as many people as possible if we’re to slow the overproduction that causes fashion’s high carbon footprint and stem the tide of clothing waste flooding the Global South. But that doesn’t mean it should be treated as a drop-in replacement for fast fashion. Rather, it should be part of a slow approach to fashion, a frame of mind that reflects the speed and purpose of seeking that perfect second-hand treasure.

In fact, many of those who argue for thrift ethics seem particularly upset because they like the items in the TikTok video themselves, or because they can’t find pieces that are that great. “Many consumers don’t have the time, patience or skills to save, but at the same time they value the service sellers provide,” says Danielle Verme, founder and CEO of Teleport and a writer for Goodwill Hunting Magazine.

Reselling requires hours of work, including prospecting, prep, cleaning, editing, decorating, photographing and posting, and any signage must reflect and compensate for the work. Some might say it’s not a real job, but reselling is a vital role in the circular economy. It may seem unfair if you want to get that beautiful vintage coat for £5, but when it comes to calls for fairer pay in the fashion industry globally, we can’t discount the labor costs of some just because we’re a little bit jealous.

Finally, issues in fashion cannot be separated from issues in wider society. The consumer system maintains a sense of entitlement to a constant flow of new goods; Prices that reflect a fair wage seem cruel when wages are delayed. A deeply hidden system that transports billions of extra clothes to the Global South still realizes a shortage of extra clothes to sell. Simply put, there’s more than enough to go around, but unless we step back and look at the broader forces at play, like second-hand clothing, this argument will continue to circulate.