The relationship between production and consumption is no longer restricted geographically within a globalized commodity chain. Material goods are produced and distributed worldwide, with resources and materials sourced from multiple locations. The distribution of wealth produced by this global commodity chain is often skewed and growing disparities between those who produce and who consume are present.
Due to this complex and global consumer culture, many material goods are produced in excess or have increasingly shorter life spans. Today, disposable goods can be found more often; “even goods that were considered to be reusable goods just a few years back are now disposable goods” (McCollough 2007). This creates a larger scale waste problem both during production and after production.
One commodity of particular interest to us is clothing. While clothing is a reusable commodity, the trend of “fast fashion” that can now be seen has shifted clothing into becoming an increasingly disposable commodity. Fast fashion aims to produce more clothes for a cheaper price and at a lower quality, encouraging consumers to buy and dispose of clothing at a quicker pace; a “throwaway culture”. The waste resulting from clothing production itself is not reusable and therefore absorbed by the countries who produce these fast fashion commodities (Claudio 2007).
The real implications of this global donation cycle may not align with the charitable intentions of large organizations that collect and distribute used clothing (Meginnis 2012). Clothing is donated and reused on an individual scale, with second hand stores in Western societies becoming a prominent way in which this commodity is resold. However, this commodity is present on a global scale, with disposable fast fashion being produced overseas and reusable clothing “waste” then donated around the world.
The success of second hand clothing has a relationship to attitudes of consumers towards thrift in general. Thriftiness as a trend has been growing in popularity. There is an increase of consumers who turn to second hand stores during times of national economic instability. A case study in Jordan found that “in light of the recent economic hardship that Jordanians have faced due to the late alarming rise in most commodity prices, more people are turning to shopping at secondhand stores” (Na’amneh 2006). In the US, the most recent economic crisis created constraints for consumers, where thrift is “now as likely to be associated with trendy young people as with the generations who grew up during the Great Depression” (Podkalicka, 2014). A post recession consumer trend in the US that is currently advancing is discretionary thrift, where affluent consumers choose thrifty practices as they are viewed as more “fashionable”.
As thriftiness and second hand stores have become more popular, many avenues for buying and selling used-clothing have evolved. Second-hand retail includes thrift, consignment, and vintage shops. Methods of sourcing, distributing and sales differ slightly between these store models. For the purposes of this study, we will be focusing on thrift and consignment stores. We define thrift stores as organizations that sell donated used clothing. Consignment stores sell used clothing, but also buy used clothing from individuals and either provide store credit or cash back. With the sheer number of second-hand clothing stores, one must be aware of the multitude of factors that go into creating a thriving, used-clothing culture. The type and structure of a secondhand store must be considered, as well as the culture of the surrounding location and the values of the consumers.