By: Valentina Alvarado (@fuckrealife)

Transalated By; Isabel Guarache

 

Barter and second-hand sales are presented as more responsible alternatives to counter the massive purchase of new clothes, shoes, and accessories. Previously, these practices were considered necessary only for people who couldn’t afford new items. Today, with the interest of new generations in sustainability and circularity in the fashion industry, these practices are becoming increasingly normalized.

 

Source: https://abbyontheinternet.com/the-best-vintage-shopping-in-japan/

Both in physical stores and online, there are different types of stores that offer various alternatives for items. Some stores, online and offline, meticulously curate items for sale and  propose outfits with them. Others choose to transform and upcycle garments to make them more trendy, while there are also platforms that act as intermediaries between sellers and buyers, facilitating the logistics.

However, the responsible and circular factor of second-hand sales has been affected by the popularity of fast fashion.

Part of the obsolescence of the sale of second-hand clothing as a responsible solution to the massive purchase of new clothes is due to the fact that virtual platforms dedicated to this model are flooded with fast fashion items made from polyester and synthetic materials. Additionally, these platforms lack mechanisms to detect or filter whether the garments are truly second-hand. There is a growing number of accounts on these platforms that buy fast fashion wholesale and sell it as if it were second-hand.

The French platform for the sale of second-hand luxury items, Vestiaire Collective, took action in this regard in November 2022 by prohibiting the sale of fast fashion brands on their website. With this initiative, the company has opted to focus on educating their users, showing them alternatives from second-hand brands that are more responsible and use more durable materials.

On the other hand, the normalization of the buying and selling of second-hand clothes has also brought about a not-so-positive change in consumer thinking. Rather than opting to buy some second-hand and use it multiple times, consumers are buying new articles with the idea of using them once and selling them to try to recover the investment and be able to purchase more new articles. These practices make it difficult for the model of second-hand clothing sales to achieve its objective of extending the useful life of as many garments as possible.

There are brands that have adopted their own models for second-hand clothing sales. Patagonia and GANNI offer clothing repair options in order to reduce the number of articles from their brands that end up in landfills and to ensure that the clothes stay in circulation for a longer period of time. There are also brands that receive used clothing of any brand and exchange it for discounts or credits on the store, however, it is difficult to verify the responsibility and circularity of this model since these brands are unable to demonstrate that they reuse or recycle the clothing they receive.

 

The model of buying and selling second-hand clothing has become an obsolete solution to the sustainability challenges the fashion industry faces nowadays. Even though it is not a perfect model, it remains a positive alternative to extend the clothing’s useful life and delay their arrival at landfills. The addition of practices such as upcycling and repairs contributes to the actualization of this model and makes it more and more circular.