We listen back to a conversation MPR News host Angela Davis had with a historian who wrote a book about thrifting and a thrift store marketing manager about thrifting’s past, present and future.
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Alli Vera has sold more than 2,600 articles of clothing on Depop since 2016. Her shop, Color Club, specializes in vintage styles from the 1970s through the early 2000s, and most of the garments are sourced from local thrift stores in Virginia, where she lives. In March, Vera decided to permanently close Color Club and leave behind her 83,000 Depop followers.
In a 28-minute video, Vera explained that she wanted to focus on growing her YouTube channel, since reselling had become “crazy time-consuming.” But nearly half the video addressed an ongoing debate in the secondhand fashion world, one of the pillars of the sustainable fashion movement. The concern is over how upper- and middle-class “haulers” people who purchase massive amounts of secondhand clothing for resale purposes or personal wear are contributing to the gentrification of thrift stores.