Danish Asyraf & Nur Irfan
Thrift clothes are becoming more sought after and it is all thanks to the social media platform we all know and love, TikTok. However, are we really making informed decisions and not blindly hopping on the bandwagon?
Thrift shops provide a wide array of second-hand clothing items such as trousers, polo shirts and dresses. These intentionally low-priced items are either hanged accordingly or laid out on a platform for patrons to pick from. Photo: Danish Asyraf
Have you ever thought of wearing someone else’s clothes and even paying for it?
In the past few months, TikTok has blown up the culture of thrift fashion. Majority of thrift stores in Singapore have created their own TikTok accounts. Due to this, thrifting became increasingly popular among the youths.
Youths express their individuality by purchasing unique clothes and making TikTok videos about their haul or showing off their style.
Displaying how thrift clothing can also be fashionable through TikTok videos have made lots of Singaporeans want to try thrift shopping. VIDEO: TikTok @chinchilla.vintage
As seen in the amount of likes and views, these videos help spread the culture of thrift to young Singaporeans. This promotes the thrift stores and hence, many flock to said stores to get their hands on second-hand clothing for significantly lower prices.
Origin of Thrift Culture
Thrift culture originated from the United States of America (USA) in the mid 1800s to the early 1900s. The Salvation Army, an international religious charitable organisation, was one of the reasons why thrift culture was born.
In 1897, the organisation gave food and lodging to poor men who donated unused clothes. PHOTO:story.salvationarmy.org
Goodwill, another famous religious charitable organisation, started thrift shops in the 1920s. They achieved this by collecting clothes and household items that were donated or thrown away by households. These items were then placed in stores, which they own, to be sold off to middle-class housewives.
As the years went by, Goodwill and The Salvation Army owned more shops all across the USA. Then, they started to open these shops all across the globe.
An important thing to note would be that the terms thrifting, vintage and second-hand are not to be used interchangeably as they mean different things. Feng Jia, dedicated team member behind LoopGarms and Stakeout, two related shops selling vintage thrift clothing, mentions how locals tend to get confused between those three terms.
“These three terms operate more like a venn diagram, sometimes they overlap, but distinctively they have their own definitions” she adds.
Second-hand are items that have been used by someone else before. As for vintage, the term is used by businesses to announce the type of vintage items they are selling such as contemporary pop culture, 80s and 90s. Whereas thrifting is much reliant on the pricing of an item, very often sold at accessible prices.
Praisehaven Mega Family Thrift Store provides a variety of donated second-hand goods for sale. Photo:World Orgs
In this era of globalisation, thrift shops are not only limited to physical stores but some are online stores as well. In addition, people are also selling their used clothes in Facebook live auctions or in Carousell.
TikTok boosts sale of thrift shops
With the power of social media, businesses can attract more customers with online presence. They achieve this via posting content that shows off their products or business. One such example would be Nusret Gökçe or better known as ‘Salt Bae’ who got famous for sprinkling salt over a cooked ribeye.
This famous moment in the video has turned into a famous meme template used by many PHOTO: @nusr_et Instagram
With the fame that he got from becoming a meme, his business flourished. Gökçe owns steakhouses, known as Nusr-et, and many celebrities have gone to his restaurants and pay lots of money for a personalised dining experience with the man himself.
This was all made possible with the help of social media.
Similarly, thrift shops are also a ‘victim’ to this form of social media sensation. The trend of thrifting is becoming more famous thanks to avid ‘thrifters’ who make TikTok videos of their thrift haul or the thrift store that they went to.
TikTok videos like attracts new customers to thrift shops while also increasing the amount of people who thrifts VIDEO: TikTok @chinchilla.vintage
Unlike ‘Salt Bae’, the local thrifting trend gained popularity on TikTok instead of Instagram. One thing that TikTok has which Instagram does not is something called the ‘For You’ page which allows users to view TikTok videos of other content creators whom they may or may not be following.
Thanks to avid local thrift shoppers who make TikTok videos showing off their thrifted goods, lots of young Singaporeans are hopping on to the trend of thrift shopping.
Feng Jia said, “A lot of youngsters nowadays love to find something that they see value in and wear it in their own individual way”.
Additionally, she also recalls that the customers who mainly patronize their shops are aged between 18 to 23 years old.
More youths are entering the world of thrift clothes
As mentioned, with the help of TikTok, ‘Gen Zs’ are welcoming themselves to the thrifting world.
Farra Nur Quraisya, 19, said: "TikTok has swayed my peers and I to try buying clothes from thrift shops. I even went to a thrift shop as a date with my partner because the thrift shop sold clothes that we wanted. We didn’t want to miss out.”
When one of our reporters went down to a local thrift shop, he could see that the majority of customers in the store were people belonging to the Generation ‘Z’. Photo: Danish Asyraf
Many see thrift clothing as a means to look good without burning a hole in their wallet but a rare few see this as an opportunity to fill their wallet.
19-year-old Muhammad Naabil Iman is a store owner of a thrift shop named 19thgrails. Naabil had his first experience in selling vintage clothing through Instagram last year.
During the circuit breaker period, Naabil was told by his manager that his workplace had to prioritise the full-timers instead of the part-timers. With only a hundred dollars left in his bank, Naabil purchased a bunch of vintage clothes and sold them online.
“It was more of a cry for help for money but as time went by, I started to learn more about the community and it soon enough became a passion project.” Naabil said.
With the money he earned by doing this, Naabil opened a vintage cum thrift store. However, as much as it was a dream come true, it was also a harsh reality to face.
“The flaw about thrifting is the supply and demand. For the past two years of the trend in thrifting, the increase of thrift shops ordering huge quantities of bales is ridiculous and also the amount of donations given to these thrift shops may be too much for them to handle.” answered the 19-year-old when asked about flaws of thrifting.
According to a Channel News Asia Insider video of textile waste in Singapore, about 92% of textile waste is incinerated while the remainder is dumped in a landfill. PHOTO: blog.carousell.com
Despite many donating their clothes, not all of them will be given the green light to be sold. Majority of them would be either discarded or donated to The Salvation Army for them to be exported overseas and the locals of the receiving country will sell these second hand clothes.
This then begs the question, does thrift clothes contribute to the problem more than the solution or vice versa?
Problem or Solution?
While thrifting is recognised for its sustainability, it is not all rainbows and sunshine.
In the past decade, thrifting has taken over Singapore by storm. This is especially evident among the individuals of Generation Z, those born after 1996.
The cause of this rapidly growing trend is owed to a couple of reasons, one of which being the increase in awareness of the fast fashion trend. The fast fashion industry has seen constant scrutiny regarding unethical treatment of its workers and questionable working conditions in garment factories.
Moreover, Gen Z are reportedly more invested in climate change compared to previous generations. According to McKinsey’s “The State of Fashion 2019” report, “Nine in ten Generation Z consumers believe companies have a responsibility to address environmental and social issues.”
Fashion brands such as Patagonia and Pact are prime examples of how the fashion industry is pushing to reduce consumption of resources and minimize their environmental impact by using recycled materials and less harmful production methods. PHOTO: shop.shredzshop.com
However, these sustainable fashion companies lean towards the pricier side as compared to their fast fashion counterparts.
Hence, thrift stores fit into the picture, providing the environmentally conscious individuals who do not have accessibility to such brands with the lack of resources.
Lastly, social media has contributed significantly to the rise of thrifting in Singapore. The influence to keep up to date with the latest fashion trends have been exacerbated with platforms such as TikTok.
Costly Future
As mainstream brands regularly release new styles in stores, thrift stores answer back with their unique pieces, catering to the preference of the Gen Z demographic in a way that mainstream brands could not.
With all that said, the rise of thrifting’s popularity among wealthier consumers is harming lower-income shoppers. Those who do not need to thrift to fill their wardrobe are causing inventory to be depleted much quicker when buying in bulk.
Customers or online resellers with more spending power are creating a cycle. When thrift stores are increasingly preferred over fast fashion brands such as Zara or H&M, the cost of clothing would eventually match up.
Those who once relied on thrift stores for clothing would turn to fast fashion brands where they can hop on the current trend for similar prices. Hence, this surge of interest drives the cost of items up and proves to be problematic for those who depend on the low costs. PHOTO: Danish Asyraf
Despite this cycle, there is no solution which can solve this issue entirely. Nonetheless, it is always better to be sustainable for the sake of the environment.
Wearing second hand clothes can still make you look as good as wearing first hand clothes. As the saying goes: Another man's trash is another man's treasure.
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