Second Hand in Hand
“What do you think of it?” asks Jenna, holding up a blue lace tank top.
“Yeah, I really like that. You should get it,” Cole keeps skimming through the racks of clothing. He picks up a hanger and examines a shirt. It is a funny dad-like shirt that is perfectly oversized. He laughs to himself and adds it to the growing pile in his arms.
The pair walks up and down the rows of clothes at Thriftique in Potsdam, New York. Jenna and Cole love to go “thrifting” -or shopping at secondhand stores- because of how different each experience is. “You never know what is going to be there,” Cole says, keeping his eyes down at the line of jeans all hung up on plastic hangers. “If I see something I like, I will probably end up buying it just because it probably won’t be here next time.”
Jenna wanders over to the home section of the store. The musty yet comforting smell of the carpeted floors surrounds the two. She carefully maneuvers around the shelves stacked with different glasses, plates, mugs and assorted silverware. “Looking at the home section makes me feel really nostalgic for some reason,” she says. “Like this mug very clearly was a homemade gift for someone, but now it ends up here. It’s kinda fun to think about the backstories and the people behind the random items you find at thrift stores.”
Thrifting has become a trend among teenagers and young adults during the past few years. In Potsdam and Canton, New York there are a combined eight thrift stores. From the affordable prices to the environmental benefits, teens especially have found a love for secondhand shopping. While many, like Jenna and Cole, opt to shop in person and sift through the donated clothes, there are also online options.
Websites and apps like Poshmark, ThredUP and Depop enable sellers to post online listings of their used clothing to make a profit. Online thrift stores have become appealing because people can make an extra buck from their clothes instead of donating them the traditional way. The pandemic also helped encourage this movement and reached a broader audience, while in-person thrift stores were closed.
“Selling my clothes on Poshmark has been an easy way to make money,” says Sophia. “I mean, I’m not going to wear the stuff that doesn’t fit me anymore, so I may as well try to sell it.” Taking pictures of her clothes and uploading them to the app is a standard practice she does when she cleans out her closet. Sophia also finds using the app to be really easy, as it generates premade shipping labels when she sells an item. It takes care of a lot of the hard stuff.
“I don’t usually have much success, honestly,” Sophia chuckles to herself. “Like yeah, I try to sell my clothes, and I leave the listings up, but I think I’ve only actually sold like 10 items total.” She has listed over 50 items on Poshmark over about 5 years.
The choice to shop at thrift and secondhand stores aims to help with the environmental toll that manufacturing new clothing has. According to a 2018 study by the Environmental Protection Agency, unwanted clothing and footwear resulted in 13 million tons of waste that year. Instead of letting clothes end up in landfills, shopping secondhand allows for the clothes to be used again and again, cutting down on waste.
A visiting assistant professor in the Environmental Studies, Ana Maria Spagna, talks about how beneficial buying secondhand is. “Well, first off, it limits consumption of things like cotton, which are water-rich crops,” she says. “Like half of our clothes now use plastics, which we know are no good for the environment, for sea life, for all of us,” Spagna says. She points to her light puffer jacket, indicating it was made of microplastics. Even the most environmentally conscious people are still sometimes guilty of contributing to the production of clothing.
Spagna also emphasizes that thrifting is not only good for the environment but also brings economic justice. Thrift stores allow people to have access to quality yet affordable clothing that they may not have otherwise. However, this also causes a problem in secondhand shopping. As younger generations find thrifting to be trendy, the accessibility worsens. Prices skyrocket, and valuable clothing becomes harder to find. “That’s a problem of anything that becomes trendy, it’s going to become an economic driver,” Spagna says. “But anything where you are reusing and starting a culture of reusing is fantastic.”
Katie is a fan of Classy Collectables on Main Street in Canton, New York. She parks her car in front of the Dollar Tree and puts her sunglasses back on the dashboard. “I really want to look for flowy skirts for the summer,” she says, grabbing her large tote bag out of her car. “But, knowing myself, I will probably see other stuff that I like and will want to buy that too?” The stale smell of old clothing and furniture hits her as she speed walks to the back of the store.
Weaving in and out of the different sections, Katie sees a blue floral pattern peeking out of a rack. She pulls at the material and holds up the skirt. “Sometimes thrifting is hard,” Katie examines the skirt for any signs of heavy wear. “I get it that I’m buying this secondhand, so it’ll be used, but I try my best to find things without stains.” She points to a faded brown mark on the bottom hem of the skirt in frustration.
“Sure, this skirt is stained, but I could probably cut off the bottom and make it a little shorter, and it’ll be fine,” she says, thinking about how she can repurpose the item. As she combs through the different sections of the store, her tote bag fills up, and clothes start to pour out the top.
After about half an hour of shopping, Katie decides that she is ready to check out. The prices of her clothes vary, one shirt being three dollars and another eight dollars. She also buys two skirts and a pair of jeans. “It’s annoying having to wash the clothes before I can wear them,” she says as she digs through her bag to find her car keys. “I just want to wear them now, but yeah, I don’t know where these items have been, so it’s for the better that I wash them.”