On the Changing Landscape of Shopping Pre-Owned

Having come of age in ‘90s New England, in a town with a vibrant thrift store culture, I’ve been adept at buying pre-owned clothing since my teens. But it wasn’t until I moved to Ireland just over a decade ago, that I made a more categorical switch to shopping second-hand.

It began out of sheer necessity. My move to the Emerald Isle was not planned: I had come for a two week cycling holiday and ended up staying permanently - with most of my possessions left behind. I had just quit my job and was living off part-time freelance work. I was also going through a divorce. When Autumn arrived, I needed warm clothes and could not afford an entire new seasonal wardrobe. So I had a browse in the local charity shops, filled the gaps via eBay, and voila! A ‘new’ wardrobe at minimal expense.

A Golden Age of Second-Hand Shopping

Over time I settled into my new life, into a new career. The state of my finances improved. But I discovered other benefits to shopping second-hand. As someone who wears exclusively natural fibre fabrics, I found it increasingly difficult to find such garments in mainstream retail shops. Even the higher-end brands were moving to synthetics, or synthetic blends at best. Natural fibre content was becoming the exception rather than the norm, the speciality of niche brands - which had no presence in my remote corner of Ireland.

On the other hand, my nearest market town had plenty of charity shops. Amidst the clothing manufactured a decade or two earlier, the selection of cotton and wool, sometimes even linen and silk, was abundant. And what wasn’t available locally, I could hunt down on eBay. Be it a tweed blazer, a cotton v-neck, or a silk velvet dress, I could find the items I wanted, in the fabrics I wanted, easier than in retail shops - not to mention at a fraction of the cost. Being in possession of crafting skills, there was also the option of purchasing items larger than my size in colours and fabrics that spoke to me, and refashioning them into customised garments - a hobby that dovetailed nicely with my growing knitwear design practice.

All in all, I was spoiled for choice. The pre-owned market became my comfort zone, and continued to be where I made the majority of my clothing purchases. Looking back, pretty much the only items I bought new for myself between 2013 and 2023, were undergarments and tights.

However, when I look at my closet today, the proportion of second-hand to new is more like 25%. So what has changed?

As it happens, a lot. On a personal level: We moved to a new house, in an area with an active arts scene. My daughter started pre-school. My workflow, social commitments, and method of transport changed. And finally, after undergoing and then resolving some health problems, the shape of my body had altered.

To accommodate these socio-geographic, logistical, and physical transformations I needed new clothes. And when I tried my usual, second-hand method… it did not work.

I should pause here and explain that I experienced this as a sudden thing only because for several years prior I hadn’t been shopping much at all. While COVID is said to have inspired a boom in the retail industry, the impulse to endlessly ‘add to basket’ whilst quarantined seems to have passed me by. The epidemic coincided with my postpartum years - which I spent in tattered oversized clothes from my husband’s ‘too worn out for workwear’ pile, unmotivated to try much of anything else - until the aforementioned house move and associated happenings shocked me out of my sartorial stupor.

The change in the second-hand market had been underway for several years already; I just hadn’t been paying attention. But the situation had my full attention now.

Things Had Changed on the Pre-Owned Clothing Scene

Whether online or in person, buying pre-owned clothes is always hit and miss to some extent. But as an experienced second-hand shopper, one develops a knack for maximising chances of it being the former. And it was as if that skill had suddenly evaporated. In the local charity shops, fabrics with natural fibre content had become so rare, as to be almost non-existant. Times had moved on, and people were no longer donating items from decades ago; they were donating cheaply produced items from contemporary fast fashion brands. Whereas several years prior you could easily walk in to find woollen coats, cotton dresses, and quality denim from heritage manufacturers, the racks were now filled with poly-acrylics from the cheapest brands on the high street.

The eBay situation was no better. Clothing described as ‘worn twice’ arrived pilled, fraying at the seams, or distorted after a single laundering. Clothing described as ‘cotton’ turned out to be some variety of viscose - with the seller, when queried, replying it was ‘ordinary fabric’ which they thought was synonymous with cotton. And sadly, I believe they were being honest.

We have reached, it seemed, an abyss-like era - where the average person may genuinely not even know what cotton means - believing it to be an abstract descriptor referring to a fabric’s thickness or texture, rather than a reference to a specific plant.

After several weeks of trying to shop second-hand, it was clear that I was accumulating clutter rather than building a wardrobe. I was aware there existed thrift shops in large trendy cities, that specialised in more ‘curated’ second-hand collections. I had was also aware that several pre-owned marketplace platforms had sprung up, to address this very issue. But aside from the fact that their prices were on par with newly produced goods, none of these resources were available in my area.

What was happening in the second-hand market now, was the same phenomenon I had observed in the mainstream retail space a decade earlier: Synthetics and cheap production had become the new norm, with natural fibre fabrics and quality manufacturing available only through dedicated niche platforms.

Of course the fact that this happened was entirely to be expected; the latter being a natural consequence of the former. I just hadn’t anticipated for it to happen so quickly. I would lose hope in the situation entirely, if it weren't for one thing.

Among Today’s Clothing Brands, the Pendulum Has Begun to Swing the Other Way…

Having dipped my toe in the world of outfit planning and styling blogs as part of my quest for a wardrobe overhaul, I began to pay attention - for the first time in years - to what the retailers had to offer. I discovered a host of brands, too popular to be considered niche anymore, dedicated to small batch production, quality construction, and natural fabrics - at not outrageous prices.

I discovered also that even ‘normal’ brands not exactly known for their progressive ways previously, were now offering lines of (comparatively) sustainable clothing in not just natural, but organic fabrics.

Take long sleeve merino wool Ts for instance - a category that has long served as a wardrobe staple for me. Previously been specialty of ‘outdoorsy’ brands, and tricky to source even if you knew where to look, they were now available from the likes of Cos, Arket, Hush, even H&M. Wardrobe basics in 100% cotton had become commonplace again. Woollen coats, made deliberately without a lining to avoid synthetics, were apparently a Thing now. Linen garments graced the aisles of the local high street shops.

It would be lovely to think that the fashion industry has finally been jolted out of its wasteful, environment-destroying ways, waking up to the perils of fast fashion and synthetics production.

But of course that is not the reason for the change. As far as I can observe, the motivation is two-fold.

First, (and it almost physically pains me to write this phrase!) the ‘quiet luxury’ trend has had an effect. In the initial years of this phenomenon, the high street manufacturers tried to get away with merely emulating the look and the colour palette, whilst keeping the fabric content and quality of construction as per usual. But as consumers grew more informed, the brands reacted to market demands - returning to natural fabrics and attempting to at least marginally improve construction methods.

All of this was hastened, I think, by the realisation that the second-hand clothing market had become competition. I was hardly alone after all, in my preference for buying pre-owned even after I could well afford to buy new. Lots of others did the same, for the very same reasons. When pre-owned clothing is higher in quality, made of natural fabrics, and easier to source - it is hardly surprising that consumers would opt for it, even without factoring in the lower cost.

Once the present-day manufacturers realised this, they scrambled to correct their trajectory. Which of course is a positive outcome - assuming it lasts.

New Approaches to Buying Pre-Owned

Having regained interest in sartorial matters, this past year has served as a crash course in the current state of the mainstream fashion industry and clothing manufacturing practices.

And after my initial disappointment at what has happened to the pre-owned clothing scene as I knew it, I have actually come to realise that the new landscape has its benefits. Items offered for sale on the curated pre-owned platforms are more accurately described, vetted for quality, and generally more researched - making it easier to purchase a pre-owned version of an item we already know will suit us, thus greatly reducing the hit and miss aspect of shopping second hand. While that ‘wildcard’ factor of buying second-hand and never quite knowing what you were going to get had an element of excitement, it was also… harmful, in the sense that it mimicked the shopping-as-pastime model of retail, along with all of its overconsumption and wastefulness problems. Learning about clothing and value retention through these new pre-owned platforms has been an eye opener, encouraging more thoughtful and intentional purchasing.

As I grow more familiar with the changing pre-owned landscape, I continue to improve my approach. Yes, I buy less and I pay more. And the items I acquire in this manner match my needs and style more succinctly than what I had been able to achieve in the past.

It is true, gone are the days one could search for ‘linen blazer Size 12’ on eBay, find a dozen, buy a few (because after all, they are each only pocket change), keep the ones we liked and donate the rest. But the question I should have asked myself much earlier is: Was that method ever a good one.