4 ms·

Yes. Vintage clothing (and even more current but high quality clothing) does well in thrift stores. But most of the clothes people are junking is low quality an

Yes. Vintage clothing (and even more current but high quality clothing) does well in thrift stores. But most of the clothes people are junking is low quality and doesn't actually stand up well enough to being reused OR it's got some sort of gimmick or pattern that falls out of fashion too quickly rather than seeming timeless. Some of it might be cool again in 20 or 30 years, but probably not and that's longer than the cycle time for people to dispose of clothes besides. But the article isn't really about that. The article is about how making stuff new nowadays is so cheap that there is barely any cost savings over making stuff out of recycled material. This is partly because our standards for new stuff have slipped to where good quality fabrics and material are no longer valued. But it's also because a lot of the costs of making stuff new are so externalized that nobody's paying them. Also, people are so accustomed to the cheap stuff that most people wouldn't even know how to differentiate between good quality and bad. They've outsourced that discrimination to brands but the brands have wised up and there isn't as much of a relationship between the brand equity/prestige of a luxury brand and quality as there used to be.

tartoran 6y ago
But doesn’t that imply that more cheaper clothes would eventually end up filling thrifstores? The reality is that not everyone can afford to buy new and that segment of the popularion is unfortunately growing. Also, even if clothes cost little to make does not mean that retailers don’t add a mark up that renders them unaffordable to many. My main point is that poverty will make these thifstores more frequented by many, until things get better poverywise.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  At least where I've lived the trend for thrifting has mostly made thrift stores just as expensive, if not more, than going to your local fast fashion store and buying a $5-10 thing that will disintegrate after a year of laundry. In the same way that quinoa used to be a very cheap staple food but has been gentrified into an expensive health food. There is also a floor for how cheap thrift stores can sell things, because it requires labor to sort through clothing donations and figure out what is actually still in resalable condition, and stores need staff as well.
- naravara 6y ago
  > But doesn’t that imply that more cheaper clothes would eventually end up filling thrifstores? Not really because the fast fashion types of clothes don't hold up well over time. > The reality is that not everyone can afford to buy new and that segment of the popularion is unfortunately growing. The trends leading to this are because people can afford to buy new. The clothes are cheaper and don't last as long. They're so cheap that it ends up being cheaper to buy new ones and throw them away than to bother trying to recycle them (because thrifting and recycling have their own supply chain costs).
ntsplnkv2 6y ago
> This is partly because our standards for new stuff have slipped to where good quality fabrics and material are no longer valued. Because, for the most part, our clothing doesn't serve any purpose besides signaling, in the west. Most fast fashion is about looks - not function. If you do serious physical work, the cheap stuff will fall apart and right quick. If you travel a lot and wear a suit 5+ days a week, cheap suits will constantly fail you. But most people don't have that issue - so they just go with what they can afford and gets the job done.

tartoran 6y ago

But doesn’t that imply that more cheaper clothes would eventually end up filling thrifstores? The reality is that not everyone can afford to buy new and that segment of the popularion is unfortunately growing. Also, even if clothes cost little to make does not mean that retailers don’t add a mark up that renders them unaffordable to many. My main point is that poverty will make these thifstores more frequented by many, until things get better poverywise.

bobthepanda 6y ago
At least where I've lived the trend for thrifting has mostly made thrift stores just as expensive, if not more, than going to your local fast fashion store and buying a $5-10 thing that will disintegrate after a year of laundry. In the same way that quinoa used to be a very cheap staple food but has been gentrified into an expensive health food. There is also a floor for how cheap thrift stores can sell things, because it requires labor to sort through clothing donations and figure out what is actually still in resalable condition, and stores need staff as well.
naravara 6y ago
> But doesn’t that imply that more cheaper clothes would eventually end up filling thrifstores? Not really because the fast fashion types of clothes don't hold up well over time. > The reality is that not everyone can afford to buy new and that segment of the popularion is unfortunately growing. The trends leading to this are because people can afford to buy new. The clothes are cheaper and don't last as long. They're so cheap that it ends up being cheaper to buy new ones and throw them away than to bother trying to recycle them (because thrifting and recycling have their own supply chain costs).

ntsplnkv2 6y ago

> This is partly because our standards for new stuff have slipped to where good quality fabrics and material are no longer valued. Because, for the most part, our clothing doesn't serve any purpose besides signaling, in the west. Most fast fashion is about looks - not function. If you do serious physical work, the cheap stuff will fall apart and right quick. If you travel a lot and wear a suit 5+ days a week, cheap suits will constantly fail you. But most people don't have that issue - so they just go with what they can afford and gets the job done.