The Art of Thrift: The Romanization of Low-Income Hustle and Style -- Marisella

Streetwear, boho chic, depop-Y2K-grungecore-vintage thrifters all contribute to an aesthetic of having lived in clothes but at the price of garment workers' livelihood and the costuming of style. No gatekeeping here, fashion and thrift is always welcomed but it is important to recognize who built the gate and keep in mind the low income, immigrant or ethnically diverse groups in the United States that built these styles.

Thrifting is not a new practice or special to any particular group but with the rise of greenwashing and attempts to be mindful of the earth, this has led to an explosion of thrift culture. The issue with this modern take on reuse-recycle is that clothing brands like Shein, Cider, Zara, H&M, and most fashion houses are just circulating fast fashion in and out of charity shops. The clothes are not well loved or made ethically so yes, giving that poorly made crop top another go in your wardrobe is sustainable however how we got there is far further from the truth.

This idea of modern thrift has privileged Americans believing they are doing good on buying old clothes and used goods. Though unbeknownst to tik tok and instagram influencers is the social, emotional, and physical labor that international folks put into the clothing that is now gracing closets. Though it is not a secret that fast fashion is harmful to the earth and a violation of workers rights, the bigger problem is the social issue of people not caring enough to make that change. The reason people cannot pass up a drop of a new shoe or the reason to buy a new dress for an event. The desire to be perceived and the trap of “treat yourself” comes at the cost of people on the other side of the world.

Jumping to the past, Marie Antoinette pioneered the romanization of the impoverished by creating her cottage oasis for friends and herself to engage in parading as cute milkmaids. Antoinette was rumored to have had 300 dresses made for her each year, and she never wore anything twice, despite her affinity for the poor. Allegedly this former queen would give away her dresses to wives of nobility. Nonetheless in colonial 18th century America most women treasured the garments due to the limitations of one’s station. For example a widowed midwife, Mary Cooley, at the time of her death had a total of 25 wearable items and a mildly extensive collection of caps and aprons. This is a higher amount of items found in her trunk but accounted for the wearable items were 3 silk dresses that could not have been used for her job. Overall, the sparse amount of clothing instilled a care for their clothes. Once the gowns or jackets began to take wear, mending was the first step and potentially handing off garments to younger family members to be altered.

This attitude remained within America as more immigrants made their way to the United States and those who had been in the nation remained of lower economic status. Craftship was highly regarded and making items of real materials was still common practice till the mid 20th century. Most Americans were working class people that needed to be frugal especially with larger families. Functional furniture and items in the home were often heirlooms or refurbished due to the longevity of using raw materials: steel, wood-- no composite plywood nonsense. The idea of IKEA and the simplification of creating chairs, beds, desks, and tables was not around to encourage trending and undependable furniture.

In Linda Przybyszewski’s The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish follows the progression of “dress doctors” and the invention of Home Economics. Przybyszewski details the women who created patterns and educational programs to empower the women that were homemakers. With legitimate training in garment making, balancing checkbooks, and childrearing this allowed for well sustained homes and showed the head of house how to be thrifty. During the Great Depression women, even those with long lasting low income issues, created garments, primarily children’s garments out of chicken feed and wheat flour bags. With the fun and youthful patterns this allowed women to save on fabric while also caring for the home whether that is on a farm or feeding folks. In the UK the British Ministry of Information published a pamphlet during World War II that taught people how to mend their clothing due to shortages and to save a moth-eaten garments. Western society has found a way to work around shortages and the lack of access, although the cotton and garment workers were not always completed ethically there was social reform while also tackling the issue of less.

Looking to immigrants, ethnic minorities, and the low income of the middle to late 20th century there has been a conscious effort to conserve whatever these groups may have; Washing a ziploc bag to be used again, finding the Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies to either be filled with sewing needles and thread (in my house, decades worth of hand turkeys), a yogurt container with leftover pozole, pickle jars full of coins. To be thrifty was not out of choice but necessity and suddenly these economic practices are seen as green and cool (but when I was doing this from the start I was told I was dirty in middle school for thrifting). This privilege to not think with thrift in mind whether that is buying plates from Goodwill, taking a table from the side of the road, or jean shopping puts those of low to middle income at a disadvantage, socially. There is now this new group that finds these practices fun and easy but can decide tomorrow to drop this “lifestyle” which reflects the privilege of how people can turn their backs on the earth.

Though this new argument that those of low income have begun to make is that fast fashion is the only way they can buy clothes. With less selections of thrift stores and the time that takes to find clothes it is just simpler and easier to buy clothes from fast fashion stores or get an IKEA kitchen sent to one’s home. The argument once more reinforces that Americans are privileged and believe that due to the hardships of the homeland then it must be just to do what is best for themselves while not even thinking about the implications of the neocolonialism that takes places when shopping from Shein, Cider, Zara, H&M, etc. In the heartbreaking and extensive documentary The True Cost, the film follows the production of fast fashion and tackles part of the consumer issues found in the West. During the research, “It’s estimated that one in every six people alive in the world today work in some part of the global fashion industry making it the most labor-dependent industry on earth.” With a large quantity of society holding up this industry aside from the garment makers there have been an incredible impact on the cotton farmers on India, specifically in the Pujab region there has been high amount of farmer suicide deaths due to the production pressure and the health issues that have come from the toxic pesticides. India and South Asia is facing an ecological disaster all for a #ootd.

Rob Nixon’s Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor highlights the privilege and the lack of humanity in terms of the industrial processes and waste management. The United States sells our garbage to third world or developing nations which just moves the issue out of the country rather than facing the head on issue of waste. The desire for beauty and the negligence of this environment issue is a greater problem than society realizes because there has not been drastic repercussions on the homefront.

The microtrends and overconsumption of Americans is rooted in a greater sociological issue of capitalism, image, and pride. Society has become driven to shop by tapping into the psychology of marketing and promising cheap goods for quality items. The obsession with stuff and trashy attempts of maximillionism have allowed the fast fashion industry truly flourish in the 21st century. Social media, media outlets, and sensational tv has encouraged this idea of wanting to be famous and wanting to always be up to date with trends. Researchers from MIT and Harvard found that through brain scans of people before and after shopping that this act brings happiness. There is a relief in having an item that you wanted and now owning it.

So with fast fashion setting the precedent and shaping charity shops has created this ability for people to pretend they are engaging in a greener way of consuming and gives them the right to buy more than they need. Thrifting removes the impulse control that often comes when shopping in other stores due to lower prices and abudantce which is the fault of the flooding of fast fashion merchandise.