FROM THE DEPARTMENT: Secondhand News (the recurring and always controversial trend of secondhand fashion), part 1

Summary

Clotheshorse with Amanda Lee McCarty Episode Summary: "FROM THE DEPARTMENT: Secondhand News" (Part 1) Release Date: April 14, 2025

---

Introduction

In Episode 76 of The Department, hosts Amanda Lee McCarty and Kim delve into the enduring and evolving trend of secondhand fashion. Positioned as Part 1 of a two-part series, this episode explores the historical cycles of secondhand shopping, its resurgence in modern times, and the socio-economic forces shaping its trajectory. The conversation is rich with personal anecdotes, historical insights, and critical analysis of the secondhand fashion industry's impact on both consumers and the broader retail landscape.

---

Historical Overview of Secondhand Fashion

Early 20th Century Beginnings

Amanda and Kim trace the origins of secondhand shopping back to the early 1900s, highlighting how organizations like the Salvation Army and Goodwill transformed charity into a business model. Instead of giving away clothes for free, these organizations sold donated items, enabling middle-class individuals to participate in consumer culture while providing affordable options for those with lower incomes.

"Historian Susan Strasser told Jezebel, goodwill and the Salvation army offered poor people, not necessarily the poorest of the poor, a chance to participate in the developing consumer culture by being able to buy things that they would otherwise not be able to buy."
— Amanda Lee McCarty [07:04]

The Raccoon Fur Coat Fiasco (1920s-1950s)

A fascinating story unfolded in the 1920s when raccoon fur coats became a symbol of wealth and fashion among Ivy League students and celebrities like Rudolph Valentino. Amanda recounts how a surplus of these coats led to massive inventory storage, which only peaked in popularity before the Great Depression caused the trend to plummet.

"By one estimate, as many as two million fur coats moldered away in storehouses."
— Amanda Lee McCarty [46:07]

In the 1950s, Stanley Salzman and his wife Sue revitalized the trend by sourcing these surplus coats and marketing them as fashionable items, leading to a temporary boom in secondhand luxury fashion. However, the trend was short-lived as department stores flooded the market with replica coats, diluting the original appeal.

"Customers were preferring 40s and 50s clothing specifically. Once again, we're in the late 70s at this point."
— Amanda Lee McCarty [72:57]

---

Economic Influences on Secondhand Trends

1970s Economic Malaise and the Rise of Thrift Stores

The 1970s marked a significant turning point as economic challenges like stagflation—characterized by high inflation and unemployment—forced Americans to turn to secondhand shopping for affordability. Thrift stores expanded from volunteer-run spaces to fully staffed retail outlets, employing visual merchandising strategies to attract a broader middle-class audience.

"Thrift stores were also still at this point selling to cool young people who in the 70s were searching for 30s and 40s clothing."
— Amanda Lee McCarty [40:58]

Amanda draws parallels between the economic conditions of the 1970s and the early 2020s, noting similar patterns of thrift store expansion and the integration of secondhand sections within major department stores.

"Thrift stores are like, we're businesses. We're finding new ways to reach customers, too."
— Amanda Lee McCarty [80:34]

Modern Resale Platforms vs. Traditional Thrift Stores

Amanda contrasts traditional thrift stores with modern online resale platforms like Depop, Poshmark, Mercari, ThredUp, and The RealReal. While platforms that merely facilitate transactions without handling inventory (Depop, Poshmark, Mercari) are profitable, those that manage inventory (ThredUp, The RealReal) struggle due to logistical challenges and high operational costs.

"Depop, Poshmark and Mercari, they don't actually handle inventory. All they're really doing is making money off people using the platform."
— Amanda Lee McCarty [26:22]

---

Social and Cultural Impacts

Stigma and Evolution of Perceptions

Historically, secondhand shopping carried a stigma, often associated with poverty. Amanda shares personal experiences from high school where thrifted outfits were met with ridicule, reflecting broader societal attitudes that have slowly shifted over time.

"There has been this stigma against thrifting and secondhand shopping and that it was really just for like the poorest people. And that attitude may have begun in the early days of thrift stores."
— Amanda Lee McCarty [33:23]

Embracing Individuality and Creativity

Throughout different eras, secondhand shopping has been embraced by various subcultures as a means of expressing individuality and creativity. From the Beatniks and hippies of the 1960s to today's trendsetters exploring Y2K fashion, secondhand clothing serves as a canvas for personal style.

"Cheap Chic was a bible for young women looking to dress well for work and for social events while working within a budget."
— Amanda Lee McCarty [68:03]

Inclusivity and Safe Spaces

Thrift stores have historically served as safe spaces for marginalized communities, including the LGBTQ+ community during the Lavender Scare of the 1950s and 60s. As Amanda explains, these stores provided a refuge from hostile environments like mainstream department stores.

"Queer communities actually found themselves feeling safer in thrift stores and flea markets."
— Amanda Lee McCarty [57:51]

---

Economic and Environmental Considerations

Growth and Challenges of the Resale Market

The U.S. fashion resale market has seen explosive growth, doubling from $13.6 billion in 2018 to $28.1 billion in 2022, with predictions of reaching $32.3 billion in 2023. However, this growth is juxtaposed with challenges such as inventory management, quality control, and competition from fast fashion giants like Shein.

"The US fashion resale market grew from $13.6 billion in 2018... to $28.1 billion in 2022."
— Amanda Lee McCarty [21:19]

Waste and Sustainability Issues

Amanda highlights the environmental impact of secondhand fashion, particularly the disposal of unsold inventory by major players. Licensing agreements often result in unsold items being destroyed, adding to landfill waste.

"The supply chain shortages combined with extra income and time at home... now they have to destroy that inventory."
— Amanda Lee McCarty [17:10]

She also critiques the recycling claims of companies like Four Days, emphasizing that donated clothes often end up being resold or downcycled rather than genuinely recycled into new garments.

"If you are donating clothes and you want it to go to another person directly, then you probably need to either find a shelter or other organization in your area."
— Amanda Lee McCarty [38:20]

---

Future Outlook and Continuing Trends

Mainstream Integration and Corporate Involvement

By the late 1970s, secondhand shopping had become integrated into mainstream retail, with department stores like Macy's and Lord & Taylor featuring entire sections dedicated to pre-owned clothing. This trend continues today as major retailers launch their own resale platforms, seeking to capitalize on the burgeoning market.

"By the end of the 60s, we're kind of in the early years of skinny jeans, where only the most fashion forward people were wearing them."
— Amanda Lee McCarty [83:13]

Technological Enhancements and Market Saturation

The advent of online platforms has both democratized and complicated the secondhand market. While platforms like ThredUp and The RealReal offer wider access, logistical inefficiencies and market saturation pose significant challenges. Amanda predicts that the trend cycle of secondhand fashion is cyclical, with periods of rapid growth followed by market stabilization or decline as seen historically.

"We're still in the early days of how resale, secondhand resale specifically, can be successful on the Internet."
— Amanda Lee McCarty [27:34]

Cultural Reflection and Continuity

Amanda underscores that secondhand shopping is more than a mere trend; it reflects broader cultural and economic cycles. As history repeats itself, the motivations behind secondhand fashion—be it economic necessity, creative expression, or environmental consciousness—remain consistent, albeit manifested differently across generations.

"Secondhand is just one part of it. So also, we're gonna be talking about secondhand as a trend that is getting more and more media coverage, generating significant revenue, and impacting the retail sector of the economy."
— Amanda Lee McCarty [07:04]

---

Notable Quotes

• "If you are human and live in the world, you need to listen to Clotheshorse." – Individually Wrapped
  — Amanda Lee McCarty [Your money is as powerful as your vote!]

• "Cheap Chic wasn't about cheap stuff; it was about cultivating your unique personal style without falling into the designer dictatorship."
  — Amanda Lee McCarty [68:06]

• "Nobody knows better than you what you should wear or how you should look." – Cheap Chic
  — Amanda Lee McCarty [68:06]

• "People who wouldn't be caught dead in thrift shops before are competing with the lower socioeconomic group today."
  — Amanda Lee McCarty [40:58]

---

Conclusion

Part 1 of the Clotheshorse with Amanda Lee McCarty series provides an in-depth exploration of the secondhand fashion trend, tracing its historical roots, economic drivers, and cultural significance. Amanda and Kim effectively illustrate how secondhand shopping cycles through periods of popularity, driven by societal needs and economic conditions. As the second part of the series approaches, listeners can anticipate a continuation of this examination into the 1980s, 1990s, and beyond, further uncovering the complexities and future directions of the secondhand fashion industry.

---

Further Listening

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the series, where Amanda and Kim will continue their exploration of secondhand fashion from the 1980s to the present day, examining how nostalgia, corporate strategies, and evolving consumer behaviors shape the ongoing trend.

Transcript

[Amanda]

Hi, I'm Amanda.

[Kim]

And I'm Kim.

[Amanda]

And this is the department, a podcast about trends and how they define the world around us. Well, welcome to episode 76 of the Department. Only 24 more to go until we get to 100.

[Kim]

That's true.

[Amanda]

I know. We're getting there.

[Kim]

We're on. It's a trend. It's a trend.

[Amanda]

I mean, we're trending to getting towards 100. Yeah. Trend alert, everyone. Today we're going to be talking about a major retail and fashion trend that we've actually been touching on all year, which is secondhand shopping. I feel like it comes up in every single episode. Right. We're like, oh, what about this week? Secondhand. Yeah. So speaking of a trend. Right. Anyway, so I was actually going to do an episode about the monoculture, which is a term that comes up often when we talk about the historical nature of trends. I'm still going to do that in the future. I did all the reading and half of the writing, and it's really interesting to me.

[Kim]

But.

[Amanda]

But I've also been working on a series of clotheshorse episodes, debunking a lot of myths around secondhand and resale. And in the midst of that research, I realized that secondhand shopping, surprise, surprise. Has a trend cycle of its own.

[Kim]

No kidding. Okay, that's interesting.

[Amanda]

This is not the first time that secondhand, particularly when we talk about clothing, has been a big deal in fashion. I don't know why I was surprised by this, why you were surprised by it, because, you know, we're kind of like, as humans stuck in this time loop where we just do the same thing over and over, over again, but give it a different name.

[Kim]

Yeah, when? Hey, Amanda, got a question for you. When was the. When did you start secondhand shopping? Like, when was, like, your entry into this?

[Amanda]

I would say it was like late junior high, high school. And me, too.

[Kim]

There must have been a trend at that very point.

[Amanda]

There definitely was, and we're going to talk about that in the next episode when we get to the 90s, because it was definitely like, a thing, and it was actually really fun for start looking into that and seeing how we were being influenced into getting into secondhand shopping. So, yeah, I mean, people have been secondhand shopping and trading secondhand items as a way of life this whole time, you know, as long as humans have been around. But these specific episodes we're going to be talking about, secondhand shopping is a larger trend appealing to people who don't normally think of secondhand. Right. Even for Us, as we just told you, like, we had a moment where we got into it. Right. And I don't know about you, Kim, but, like, I've never looked back. To me, I'm always shocked when people are new to secondhand because I feel like. And it's the bubble that we live in, especially working in fashion, having friends in fashion that like, we're always looking to the past from a style perspective. And vintage has always been like a big part of that.

[Kim]

Yeah, I mean, it also, it's. It's easier to find like unique pieces, to have like a very, very unique style because it's not, it's not product you can get. It's been mass produced in giant bulk quantities. It's. Yeah, you know, it's. It's these irreverent, small, limited edition things that have been lost in people's closets for years. So, I mean, I remember that's what I. That's why I got into it when I was in, in high school. It was like a 70s trend in the 90s.

[Amanda]

Yeah, totally.

[Kim]

They didn't. No one made that stuff, so you had to like, go out and find it in secondhand shops. And I also loved finding kind of like ironic T shirts. My mother would secretly throw them away, which would make me so mad. I would find ones with like swear words on them.

[Amanda]

Oh, yeah. I mean, the era that fueled a gazillion dollars in sales at Urban Outfitters for sure. But no, I think, you know, one thing as I was like going through the sort of like the last 100 years of secondhand shopping is to see like, with each decade, what was the hot. The hot era in secondhand. So, like, we're going to talk about that for sure, like in the earlier parts of the last century, but like in this episode. But even just thinking like in the 90s, it was totally 70s, right. Like, as soon as you said that, I was like, yes. Ding, ding, ding. And then when we got into the aughts, it was really all about the 80s. And especially like, if you were part of that sort of like electro clash. Yeah.

[Kim]

I was just gonna say I. It was all. Yeah, I found so much good 80s, like rock, rock stuff. It was awesome.

[Amanda]

Totally, totally. Shoulder pads, cocktail dresses, the works. And then when we got into like the 2010s actually, like, it wasn't as big of a time for secondhand. It kind of waned. But people like, you know, younger people were starting to embrace 90s, right. And so you would see a lot of people wearing like, I Think about watching Girls, for example, when a time capsule. There was a lot of, like, 90s secondhand fashion in Girls, right?

[Kim]

Yeah, yeah.

[Amanda]

And now, you know, we've got people, appropriately enough, being really into Y2K, so it's just, like, interesting to see how it moves. And I. I don't know about you. I'm sure your mom felt the same way. But my mom was always like, when I was a teenager being, like, really into 70s clothes, my mom was, like, shuddering, like, oh, that stuff was so terrible the first time around. Why would you wear that? You know, as I would come out in awe, like, in a leisure suit. Like, I'm going to school in this green leisure suit. See you later.

[Kim]

Yeah, my mom would be like, here's the credit card. Here's a J. Crew catalog. Get whatever you want. So I can throw this stuff out. And I'd be like, you can't throw that out.

[Amanda]

No, I know. Yeah. It's just so funny. And so generation after generation, once again, like, humans are in this time loop where we just do the same things over and over again, but we package them slightly differently. Secondhand is just one part of it. So also, we're gonna be talking about secondhand as a trend that is getting more and more media coverage, generating significant revenue, and impacting the retail sector of the economy. Like I said, this is not the first time this has happened. In this particular return of the secondhand shopping trend, we see online platforms being a big part of its presence. Like, that's where it kind of lives in a big way right now. But I promise that as we look back to a pre Internet era, secondhand had its trendy times. And it was just as controversial back then. And certainly parents, many parents were saying, oh, God, you're not gonna wear that, are you?

[Kim]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[Amanda]

So before we get moving, I do wanna say a little bit of a disclaimer here. This is not an episode about the ethics of resale. We're not gonna debate that. If you send us messages or show up in the comments debating that, we're probably just gonna ignore you. We're not going to get into why thrift store prices are rising, and we won't be debating whether or not resellers are, quote, taking all the good stuff. If that's what you're really looking for and you want to hear more about that, then you should check out Clothes Horse next week when we put out part one of that series, which is significantly less fun than this one, but just as educational.

[Kim]

Oh, thank God.

[Amanda]

Thank God. Yeah, I mean, like, Kim, I put out a series of posts asking for people, like, their thoughts and experiences in various realms of the secondhand sort of like, cycle, like, whether they worked at thrift stores or bought secondhand or sold secondhand. And I literally received hundreds of emails and messages.

[Kim]

Wow.

[Amanda]

Yeah. So, I mean, we're just talking hours upon hours waiting through it. It was fascinating. I saw a lot of really great themes emerging.

[Kim]

That's great.

[Amanda]

But it's also like, a lot of, like, it took an emotional toll. Cause not all those messages were, like, a joy to read. You know, it was intense. But I think, like, those episodes are going to be really, really thoughtful and I hope, you know, get people thinking about things differently as well. Anyway, in these episodes, we're going to get into the social and economic phenomena that fuel secondhand as a fashion and lifestyle trend. No matter when it's happening, it's so interesting. And there are a few things that just show up time and time again. Once again, we just keep doing the same things over and over again. And we'll also break down the ways this trend has played laid out in the past without the benefit of the Internet. So, as you probably picked up on already, this week's episode will be part one of two. We're gonna journey from the early 1900s through the 70s. And then in next week's episode, we'll pick right up in the 80s and move to the present day.

[Kim]

Very exciting.

[Amanda]

It's a real. It's. It's spanning generations. But before we get started with all of that, because I know you're excited, I know Kim is excited, Kim has her regular spiel to share with us.

[Kim]

That's right, Amanda. So before we just jump right in here, here's that weekly reminder to make sure to tell your friends and family about the podcast to help us kind of grow and to make sure to follow us on your preferred streaming service. And if you have a moment rate and review, it's really helpful to get us seen more and get us promoted more on these different services. And last, you know, if you are on Instagram, you know, make sure to follow us thedepartment. And if you're looking for any show notes, any image references, all that jazz, you go to the department world.

[Amanda]

Thank you, Kim.

[Kim]

Actually, as one side note, before you get in there, I had a reading with a psychic once. This was probably about, I don't know, eight years ago. And she's like, this is when I lived in Brooklyn, New York, and I worked kind of a fast fashion retailer out there in New York. And I was getting like, a future reading. And she was like, well, you're gonna be living on the coast in California. Okay. And I was like, what?

[Amanda]

Check. I was like, all right, what?

[Kim]

I was like, never. I would never live on the coast. But she didn't really say Los Angeles. I think she was saying something that was like, more like coastal city. And she's like, and you're gonna have a resale shop. And I was like, never. I would never do that. Like, have also just like having my own store. It just doesn't feel it. That's so exhausting. But you never know. You never know. She was right about one thing. She was right about one thing. I mean, maybe she meant the fashion industry, but she was like, you're gonna have a resale shop on the coast in California.

[Amanda]

Well, it's interesting. Okay, so have I got a business proposal for you.

[Kim]

Okay.

[Amanda]

I've been thinking a lot about. And I'm not saying I want to run this business either. Disclaimer. But I've been thinking a lot about how we make secondhand shopping even more accessible to people. Because list you think a lot of people are on Depop, Poshmark, Mercari, ebay, all those places and. Or at thrift stores or yard sales and stuff. That is just a small group of people. And if we could have secondhand clothing stores in malls.

[Kim]

Oh, yeah, someone actually wrote in that they. That there are some that do exist.

[Amanda]

In malls, but I'm talking like, I want every mall.

[Kim]

You want one in every. Yeah, they're going to just be taking over the old J.C. penneys and like.

[Amanda]

Exactly, exactly, exactly. And it could be like, you know, buy, sell, trade sort of situation, but maybe also like buying inventory from other places. No new stuff at all. You know, we're not going to be like Buffalo Exchange and throw random new, fast fashion clothes on the racks and confuse you. Anyway, I don't know if I want to run this business, but, like, sometimes I'm like, maybe my. All my friends are so smart. Maybe we should. I know. Anyway, if you want to invest in our business, like, let me know. Okay, so before we jump into a whole. Into resale and secondhand and all that stuff, there are just two sort of like, minor update y things that I wanted to let you all know. First off, I wanted to shout out a podcast that I have been enjoying. And it's for all the Kathy fans.

[Kim]

Oh, my gosh.

[Amanda]

Looking at you, Kim.

[Kim]

Oh, my gosh.

[Amanda]

So for anyone who is interested in working on our Kathy Dark reboot, I guess I have all these projects going now. It's called the Ack Cast by Jamie Loftus. Highly recommend, actually.

[Kim]

What does it entail? Does she read through different.

[Amanda]

She does read every. I mean, not on the show, but she's read every single Kathy comic, which, I mean, Kathy was making comics for, like, 40 years, roughly. But it includes interviews with Kathy Geisweit herself, the artist behind Kathy. But it also sets. I don't know, it kind of like sets the reference point for each era of Kathy and, like, what was going on, especially to be a woman. It talks a lot about the boomer generation, especially boomer women, and the sort of paradox of, like, you can have it all, but really you couldn't have anything. Talks about what it was like to have a career then, the things standing in the way of that, like a happy life for women, diet, culture, temperature check.

[Kim]

But through Kathy.

[Amanda]

Yeah. Well, when you really look at it, Boomi. Boomi. Kathy is like the quintessential boomer woman.

[Kim]

Oh, I love that.

[Amanda]

It's really fascinating. So kind of like, if I see some Kathy books when I'm thrifting, I'm definitely gonna pick them up and give them a read.

[Kim]

But she never aged, so she's still the quintessential boomer. Or does she evolve through the different generations?

[Amanda]

Well, she kind of just, like, ages at a different rate for us. This is the part where it gets a little confusing, right? Cause, like, time passes, right? Like, they get into, like, the startup era and Internet and stuff like that. But at the same time, she's still kind of the same age the whole time. But, like, her best friend has kids who grow up into teenagers, you know, so it's. There is. It's. It's weird from a time space, but that things reflect time. Yeah, It's Kathy time. It's Kathy time. And it is interesting, and I want to say it ends with Kathy getting married to her boomer boyfriend who kind of sucks. Who she's been, like, on again, off again.

[Kim]

Oh, God, that's sad.

[Amanda]

But that's how life goes.

[Kim]

It's like a Gilmore Girls ending.

[Amanda]

Yeah.

[Kim]

Oh, man, this character deserves so much better.

[Amanda]

Exactly. That same thing with Kathy. I think everybody who loved Kathy felt the same way. So, anyway, go give that a listen to. We'll link to it in the show notes. I'm actually going to link to an article in the New York Times about it. This podcast came out in 2021. It's. I don't know it's like about a dozen episodes. So enjoyable. And really, I don't know, it kind of like reshaped my opinion on Kathy. So definitely worth a listen if you're just like, I wanna. I wanna listen to something else. I wanna learn something new. Yeah. The other thing I wanted to touch on is kind of like a little update from our kidulting episodes and it's about Funko Pops, which you remember are those like never heard of before. But yes, I hate them. I mean, there's like just plastic. It's just plastic. Anyway. Well, everybody who has ever been born sent me this article the day it came out and I'm really grateful for it. It was called. It was from. Oh my gosh, why am I blanking on the. It's from Kotaku.com, which is like sort of like into electronic and computer and like geek culture kind of stuff. Over $30 million worth of Funkos are headed to the landfill, which I was estimating. I think Funko pops are about $15 ish. That we're looking at like 2 million of these plastic figures going to the landfill like right now. And it was just like the classic, like they had too much inventory. The quote from the Kotaku article is part of what seems to be going on here is that the supply chain shortages combined with extra income and time at home during the early pandemic years spurred a temporary run on Funko Pop sales. Now that the initial rush has subsided, the company has a ton of extra stocks. At the same time, sales are dropping. Yeah, it's also hard not to wonder if the entire Bobblehead redux has hit peak saturation, which I would agree. It seems like it was a lot of the same licenses that they were throwing out, like a lot of like Star Wars Mandalorian kind of stuff, which I just think people aren't into right now. But we're talking like millions of units. Just they're not recyclable. They can't be sold because of licensing agreements. And so they have to be destroyed, as in sent to the landfill.

[Kim]

Well, can't they just like hold onto it and you know, and release it over time? That just seems like such a goddamn waste.

[Amanda]

It's interesting. I was working with a vendor at my job who had the license for Rilakkuma, who is like a Japanese bear. He's owned by Samx and they were producing plush, like to sell in the United States using the Rilakkuma license. But their licensing agreement expired at the end of last year and it Was basically like, everything that they haven't sold by December 31, they can never sell again. They have to destroy it. So they were like, please, will you buy some of this from us? You know, And I think that these licensing agreements lead to a lot of waste. And it's important to call out that. Licensing is like, in every category of consumer goods at this point. And so, like, from, you know, whether it's clothing, kitchen stuff, toys, collectibles, children's stuff, slippers, socks, you name it, when the license expires, that shit just goes to the landfill because it can't be sold. And it's just another like, gross human capitalism thing that I hate. I did have one fun fact for you about Funkos, and I was enlightened to this by Sherry Rulin, our friend and former Nasty Gal coworker who saw me share this article on the Clothes Horse Instagram. And she said, you know who their chief operating officer was until this shakeup happened with all the extra inventory and people got laid off. And I was like, I literally have no idea. Tell me and I will just tell you. It is one of the worst humans I've worked with in my whole career. It's someone who worked with us at Nasty Gal who was known for, among things, his huge canister of pretzels under his desk.

[Kim]

No.

[Amanda]

Yes.

[Kim]

Oh, no. Charlie Brown.

[Amanda]

Not his real name, but literally just a horrible human being.

[Kim]

He's a grown up Charlie Brown. Yeah.

[Amanda]

And he was at Nasty Gal, like, very bad at his job.

[Kim]

Just mean to women.

[Amanda]

Horrible. Couldn't keep a planner for more than a month at a time. Just yelled at people when he wasn't sexually harassing them or demeaning them. And yeah, so, I mean, it seems as if he was ousted. Funko started to have money issues last year and they had a huge turnover in their entire C suite, including, although his LinkedIn still shows he works there. I have no idea. But I was like, yep. Adds up to me that they would have $30 million worth of inventory they had to destroy. That's got his name all over it.

[Kim]

I think Dustin should find his Instagram and send him emojis of farts.

[Amanda]

I'll let him know. Although, can you imagine that guy on Instagram? Is it just pictures of pretzels? I don't know.

[Kim]

It's pretzels wife. I don't.

[Amanda]

I don't know either. Yeah. Anyway, I just thought. I was like, I cannot wait to tell Kim this. Okay, but now we're gonna move on and we're gonna get into our conversation about Secondhand, which I'm really excited about because this was such a fun and educational journey, even for me, a person who thought, like, yeah, I probably know everything about this, and I definitely didn't. So unless you've had the pleasure of not watching people argue about the ethics of secondhand resale and social media lately. Lucky, Lucky.

[Kim]

I. I am so glad that I have not had to experience that.

[Amanda]

I. Good.

[Kim]

I am sorry that that's your world.

[Amanda]

I mean, honestly, it's like, it's gonna be crazy when these episodes of Clothes Horse come out. And anytime I post about this kind of stuff, people, like, do send me threatening messages and stuff. But, like, people on resellers on Tick Tock are getting, like, death threats over selling secondhand clothing. And I just would like everybody to take a deep breath, like, this is crazy. This is not okay. Yeah, the Internet is People. People get wild on the Internet, as we know. Right. Anyway, if you. If you, like Kim, are lucky enough to not have to witness. Witness this, congratulations. But everybody else already knows that shopping secondhand is enjoying a major moment. I mean, you already know that.

[Kim]

Anyway, Kim, moment is. You're in the right word.

[Amanda]

It's just like a.

[Kim]

It's like surge.

[Amanda]

Yeah. Big time. To set the context of just how big this moment is, let's take a look at some statistics. So the US fashion resale market grew from $13.6 billion in 2018, when it was already on an upswing, to 28.1 billion in 2022. That is a huge jump. In the same report, this comes from a group called Coresight. It was predicting 15% growth for 2023, hitting about 32.3 billion. And I will say 15% growth isn't wild to me, coming from the retail sector, where like 15% means you're just trying. You're planning to have an okay year, although it's still a great comp year over year. But it does say to me that either we're hitting a ceiling with secondhand clothing sales online right now, or the current economic climate is dampening enthusiasm here. Although, so any think piece that's been published this year about this is saying, like, no, where we are economically right now is going to make Secondhand even bigger. And I'll tell you, based on the research I was doing, that does add up. So it could be like only 15% increase this year because the platforms aren't keeping up. There just isn't enough or enough options.

[Kim]

I mean, is there enough actual secondhand.

[Amanda]

Clothes to go around There is, but are they clothes that people want? Right, right. This is like where the fights begin on the Internet. Because of course, you know, there, if you go into your average thrift store right now, there's a shit ton of Shein and there's a shit ton of Lularoe and other, like, lots of Amazon fast fashion kind of stuff, and no one wants that. Which raises a larger question of, like, well, why did we buy it in the first place? Then everyone, you know, but that is like, like, that's kind. That's what's happening. Desirable products. There's still plenty of clothes out there and there's still plenty of secondhand clothes. But, like, the. The mix is maybe declining as people, you know, as we've seen secondhand picking up, we've also seen Shein and all these other, of course, super fast, fast fashion.

[Kim]

Also low quality. Excessive low quality.

[Amanda]

Yeah. So they've been going kind of going hand in hand like. Like when people get really amped on the success of secondhand. Right now I'm like, yeah, that's great. But like, we can't remember that Shein is also growing alongside it. So. According to the Thredup Recommerce 100, which is a monthly report on the landscape of clothing and fashion resale, as of now, 128 brands are currently operating their own resale platforms. And of that list, 72, more than half launched their resale platforms last year. The list is pretty diverse and occasionally surprising. You know, we got brands that already focus on sustainability and quality. You know, like Eileen Fisher, Tuesday of California, New Works Woven. Lots of players in the sustainable fashion game. We've got outdoor brands like rei, Patagonia, the North Face, Timberland. Those don't surprise me either. But then there are mall brands who launch their own platforms, of course. Athleta, another nasty gal. Infamous undistinguished alumni running that brand right now. Pacsun, Francesca's Hot Topic, Lululemon, and Madewell, among others. Many others.

[Kim]

I mean, I would actually argue that there's way more than 128 brands because, you know, when I was at my last employer, I was working on launching a resale platform there. And. And there's. There's a. There's a few different ones that work with these independent designers that are actually more independent than, you know, maybe like Wolven or Eileen Fisher. So it's like, you know, the Rachel Comeys and like Claire V and all. I think there's actually. That's like a super understatement of a.

[Amanda]

Number I believe it. In terms of the smaller brands that are on this list, I know that all of them use that platform. Treat tariff, T R E E T. And I'm sure that, like, Thredup is aware of that platform and is, like, pulling that data, but they're not. They're not getting everyone who isn't, you know.

[Kim]

Right. Yeah. There's. I think it's called, like, reset. Reset. I forget what it's called.

[Amanda]

There's.

[Kim]

There's. There's a. There's a. There's one that. That's working with, like, all the kind of cool. The cool kids in town.

[Amanda]

Yeah, I mean, it's. It's just blowing up. And, you know, there's. There's interest in this across the board. No matter what your aesthetic or interest in fashion is. Like, people are buying into this right now. And there are, of course, the big platforms. Depop, Poshmark, Mercari, ThredUp, the RealReal. So here's the thing. Depop, Poshmark and Mercari are making profits. ThredUp and the RealReal haven't turned a profit yet.

[Kim]

No kidding.

[Amanda]

Here's the difference, though. The first three, Depop, Poshmark and Mercari, they don't actually handle inventory. All they're really doing is making money off people using the platform.

[Kim]

Yes.

[Amanda]

The second group, ThredUp and the RealReal, they do. They bring in the inventory.

[Kim]

A logistical nightmare.

[Amanda]

I know. Seriously, I don't know. And like, people ask me all the time, how do you make that model profitable? And I'm like, no one has yet. Like, I don't know how. And I see the cracks in the system. Thredup has been notoriously behind on receiving, like, I don't know, the bags that people send a product for like a year, two years, years now, they've never really caught up. If you go onto their website, the photography is, like, horrible. Sometimes things are sideways. Not even on right wrinkly. The measurements are always wrong. Real, real. The photography is better, but their measurements are also wrong. I'll be like, I literally have that dress in that size sitting here in my closet. That is not the measurement of it, you know, and so, so, like, they have to push through so much work and so much product.

[Kim]

A lot of people.

[Amanda]

It's a lot of people. And so the, the productivity metrics that they hold all of their, their team members to are just, like, not achievable. Like, I want to say for the real, real. Like, first off, the off, the authenticators are also the copywriters also the photographers, also the inspectors. They receive it, they write the copy, all that stuff. They' professional authenticators. They get trained to do it. I read on Glassdoor that they're expected to do about 300 items per day, which is just to do all that stuff. I know, I know. So it's, it's just. It's just a lot. And I understand now why those companies aren't making profit. And I don't know how they do, especially Thredup, whose clothes are. You know, they sell them for so little. I don't know how they even make a profit off of one unit. Yeah, so, yeah, so there's still. We're still in the early days of how resale, secondhand resale specifically, can be successful on the Internet. You know, like it's happening. But there are a lot of bad feelings across the board. You know, thredup in the RealReal aren't making money. They maybe aren't doing a great job of presenting the product and the other platforms. You know, for a lot of sellers, they feel that they are very unfair, you know, taking an unfair cut. So there's just, There's. There's a lot. We're still in the early days of how this could be good or bad. Um, you know, when we talk about secondhand, especially on the Internet, we tend to talk about secondhand shopping in relation to clothing. But actually, clothing, shoes, and accessories are a small part of the secondhand resale landscape. Fewer than one out of four items sold through recommerce, as in shopping secondhand online, are clothing. That's According to the 2022 OfferUp report, the balance that remaining 76% of resale purchases are in electronics, furniture, home goods, home improvements, sporting goods, outdoor equipment, and auto parts.

[Kim]

Oh, yeah.

[Amanda]

Okay. So clothing isn't even the biggest part of this.

[Kim]

That's crazy.

[Amanda]

Yeah. Yeah. So as I was researching resale and secondhand for Clothes Horse, I had a pair of light bulb moments, which is what led to this series of episodes for the department. One was that since, as we've discussed, we as humans tend to be in a sort of endless repeating loop of trends and behaviors, was there a time in the past where people were fretting about the impact of more mainstream secondhand shopping? The answer is yes. And I also remembered from my numerous readings of Pamela Dispar's I'm with the Band, the Famous Groupie Book, that the most fashionable groupies were wearing a lot of vintage and secondhand clothing in the 70s and the 60s, particularly from the 1920s. So there was definitely at least one time in the past when secondhand clothing was adopted by the most fashion forward part of society. So I knew, I knew these two things, right? And so I figured, what else could there be? I also knew that wearing vintage clothing in the 90s was super cool. That's how Kim and I got into it.

[Kim]

And ironically, when you say I'm with the band, I used to have an ironic T shirt that I got in the 90s with I'm with the band on it.

[Amanda]

Is that what that song Circle of Life is really about?

[Kim]

Yes, I think so.

[Amanda]

And then of course in the 80s there was the film Pretty in Pink, which is.

[Kim]

Oh, that just must have blown up.

[Amanda]

Basically about making amazing outfits out of vintage clothing. I never even thought about that. And so, I mean, and that definitely is influenced me for sure, you know, and I bet it influenced a lot of creatives of the 90s to, you know, talk more about secondhand and make outfits out of it and editorial and all that stuff. So it's pretty clear that secondhand shopping, thinking about all of this as an aspirational activity is nothing new. And contrary to what you might hear, neither TikTok nor Depop invented wearing secondhand clothing. And while I'm sure Thredup would love to take take credit for that as well, they didn't either. So it goes without saying that people have been wearing and using secondhand items forever, particularly those with lower incomes and those who just live a thrifty lifestyle. And while secondhand has become a big money maker for, I don't know, the last 70 years or so for thrift stores, rag yards and resellers, it wasn't always a business, but it has been a business for a really long time in the past. People have always passed things around person to person. You know, hand me downs. I know, Kim, you got a lot of hand me downs from your sisters. Sharing within families and communities, yard sales, that kind of stuff. Having less money and less stuff as a whole means getting the maximum use out of everything. And I think we can all agree that nothing is truly disposable and we shouldn't pretend that anything is. But despite that, there has always been a stigma against thrifting. That it's gross, that it's dirty, that only the poorest people do it. And I don't know about you, Kim, but when I showed up to high school in all my super sick thrifted outfits, people would be like, ew, gross. What are you, like, poor? Like, my family was embarrassed. Really? Are you serious? Yeah. My family was embarrassed and like, you know, I will say my family probably should have been thrift shopping. We certainly didn't, Couldn't, couldn't afford to like go to the mall and buy clothes. But we would rather like go to outlets and stuff like that to buy things like 75 off than buy second hand clothing. Because I think there was just so much shame attached to it where I grew up.

[Kim]

Yeah.

[Amanda]

Even though, like Kim, we literally would do our grocery shopping at this place, it was called the Cannery, and everything in there was stuff that had basically fallen off a truck or was expired. No problem grocery shopping there. But like, don't let me see you at the Goodwill. Right. Like, so weird, like all the weird hang ups we have about secondhand. Right. Or other things that are like indic indicators of poverty or success. Right. And you know, thrift and secondhand stuff has always been a part of that. Even though, like used cars, no one's like, ew, you're gross. You bought a secondhand car. No, people were like, that was smart of you, you know, to get a used car.

[Kim]

Yeah, exactly.

[Amanda]

Or like a used house, no one's like, ew, gross. You should blow that thing up and start over. Humans are so weird. So anyway, there's been this stigma against thrifting and secondhand shopping and that it was really just for like the poorest people. And that attitude may have begun in the early days of thrift stores. In the early 1900s, organizations like the Salvation army and the Goodwill helped poor people get jobs. And then they would open stores where they could buy things rather than just giving them clothes, etc. For free. They were like, hey, we're just gonna, you can come and buy them from us. It was, it's a weird version of charity for sure. In fact, the intention was never to give this stuff away. Historian Susan Strasser told Jezebel, goodwill and the Salvation army offered poor people, not necessarily the poorest of the poor, a chance to participate in the developing consumer culture by being able to buy things that they would otherwise not be able to buy. It was sort of like a bootstraps model of charity, if you will. Kind of like, we won't give you direct assistance, but we will give you the opportunity to buy stuff just like us. Right. It's weird. It's really, really weird. You know, before the Industrial Revolution, people didn't really buy clothing, they made it. And because of that, people didn't really get rid of stuff. They would just repair, repurpose, or pass it. On to someone else in the family. But the industrial revolution was all about making and selling stuff. So now clothing, among many other things, could be store bought. Still, it felt very unnatural to people to just throw away clothing and other things. But they also wanted new clothing and other things. So how to make that work? Oh, yeah, Just donate the stuff that you don't want anymore, Making room for more in your closet and ostensibly doing some kind of good deed. Although I think a lot of people who donated clothes and other household goods thought that they were going to go to poor people, but really what happened is that they would go into a store where people could buy it. Like. So, yeah, it's like one of those things about donation and donating to thrift stores specifically that I think people are still stuck on, where they think that they're like giving a gift to someone and really they're giving a gift to the thrift store itself, who now gets to sell inventory that it got for free.

[Kim]

Yeah, yeah, there it is.

[Amanda]

It's confusing. Do you know that? Do you know that brand Four Days?

[Kim]

Yes.

[Amanda]

Okay. So they do this thing that's a bag, and you send them their clothes and your old clothes. And I'm going to tell you it's green washy because they say they recycle them, but what they really do is they sell them off to textile recycling companies who, you know, might send sums off to be down cycled into insulation or stuffing for furniture or things like that. Right. Shredded into rags. Or they might take good stuff and sell it off, you know, on the resale market, you know, by. By the bundle, by the bail to other thrift stores, resellers, that kind of thing. Or they might ship it overseas. Right. So, yeah, none of it's going to landfill, hopefully. But yeah, they're jobbing it. Right. None of it is hopefully going to landfill, but it's definitely not getting recycled. You know, it's not like turning. They're not like gonna throw it into a machine that turns it into new clothes, which the term recycling kind of implies. And I get a message, I don't know, every other day from someone asking me, what's the deal with this four days thing? And today, once again, I woke up and I had a message for someone asking about it. And I was looking at the four days website and there was a comment section and someone said, I'm just so glad that I can donate my clothes to a good cause. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what good cause is this? Like, I think that people really think that when they donate their clothes to a thrift store or even something like this, where they send it off to be recycled in quotes, they think they're giving clothes to poor people. And we need to like, stop that right now. If you are donating clothes and you want it to go to another person directly, then you probably need to either find a shelter or other organization in your area.

[Kim]

Exactly.

[Amanda]

Or use your buy nothing group to give to someone else in your neighborhood.

[Kim]

I mean, you know, Neil, my partner, works with a lot of kind of houseless initiatives, and houseless people are in desperate need of clothing, shoes, I mean, everything, and they can't afford to go to a thrift store. You know, like. Like there's definitely outlets where you can actually send it to places where people need. Can actually use that. That stuff.

[Amanda]

Yeah. My friend. My friend Christine, who is a. Is a vintage seller, she actually, when she outsourcing, she stocks up on really nice outdoor socks and layering pieces, flannels, coats, cold weather accessories, that kind of stuff. And then she and other sellers in Portland have these regular events downtown where they just set up racks of all this stuff and on house, people can come and take whatever they need.

[Kim]

Wow, that is so cool.

[Amanda]

That is so cool. Right? And like, ultimately probably the thrift stores should be doing this because they're the ones getting the critical massive inventory and then just selling it off. Once again, we're getting into clothes horse territory right now. We're gonna talk about that in close.

[Kim]

Horse, but we'll tiptoe back away.

[Amanda]

But I do think that that is something really important for people to be aware of that. Even in the earliest days of thrift stores, it wasn't like they were giving stuff to poor people. They were like, oh, no, you can come and buy it. Good luck. Thanks.

[Kim]

It's gotta help run our business and pay, you know, pay the salaries of the. The people that work there.

[Amanda]

That's right.

[Kim]

I'm sure that's. That was initially like the foundation of it.

[Amanda]

And thrift stores are businesses which we're gonna find time and time again, because as we talk about the life cycle of secondhand up through the 70s, we're going to talk about the ways in which that industry responded as an industry, not as like some sort of charitable movement. Okay. So people are like, oh my God, I want new stuff. I don't need new stuff. Now I can just start donating this stuff. Which, you know, is a feeling we've heard. We've heard this logic before. Another historian, Jennifer Lazotte, who I'm gonna, I'm gonna mention multiple times as we talk today. She told Jezebel, if you're a middle class housewife in 1920, we're starting to accelerate fashion patterns. And there are all these new styles, but your old clothes aren't worn out yet. That's okay. If you donate them, you'll be helping all these families. Then middle class housewives can feel happy about buying new flashy fashions. So yeah, we are using the same logic in the fast fashion era right now as people were using 100 years ago, telling you there's nothing new for humans to do. We're just doing the same things over and over again, right?

[Kim]

Yes.

[Amanda]

So During World War I, Americans actually slowed down their spending and they held onto their belongings, including clothing, for a lot longer than they had in the previous era. The Salvation army and Goodwill leveraged this desire to be more thrifty and get more use out of things by upping the thrift store experience, adding racks and hanging clothes. Previously, they had just been in bins. They created desirable window displays. They even shifted their real estate strategy to focus more on high traffic middle class areas. So they were like, once again, they are a business. How can we get more people in here shopping? Oh, we're gonna make it more accessible and comfortable to middle class people. So in many ways, the thrift stores were actually working to reduce that stigma of like, oh, they're only for poor people. Right. At the same time, once again, we're in this era around World War I, surrealist artists were using secondhand items in their work, whether they were stolen, gifted or purchased from thrift stores or flea markets. This was a kind of a rebellion against the commercialization of art, which was really picking up steam in this time period. A great example of this. It's classic. You've all seen it. It's the Marcel Duchamp's fountain, which is really a urinal. A secondhand urinal at that. I found another great essay from Jennifer Lazotta, the hist I mentioned about the connection between secondhand and art. I'm going to link to it in the show notes because there's a ton there. It's super interesting, but I did want to share some sections from it. She wrote, Andre Breton, Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst were among the first to transform cast aside objects directly into works of art known as ready mades or found objects, or to channel inspiration from such goods into their paintings and writing. Coinciding with and emerging from the anti art movement, Dada, which fiercely rejected the Logic and aestheticism of capitalism. The movement surrounding that elevation of pre owned items would soon have a surrealism. In his 1928 semi autobiographical work, Nadja Breton, the father of surrealism, describes secondhand shopping as a transcendent experience.

[Kim]

I think a lot of people can agree.

[Amanda]

I know, right? Discarded objects, he wrote, were capable of revealing flashes of light that would make you see, really see. He was exiled by the French government in the 1940s. He settled in New York City, and there he sought to inspire other artists and writers by taking them to lower Manhattan thrift stores and flea markets. This lent a very like sort of romantic bohemian air to thrift stores and flea markets, probably setting the example. Like, I think this is where it began, where musicians, artists and, you know, the creative types of the world would prefer secondhand shopping. For generations, even our own friends and peers. Kim. It just like kind of started back here in the 20s that it was like, oh, like it's way more artful and creative and spiritual to shop secondhand. No one at this point is talking about the environmental impact of it. No one's really even talking about the financial aspect of it. Although those middle class people who were definitely not hanging out with the surrealists, who were starting to hit up the Salvation army and Goodwill, were shopping there for economic reasons. But in general, like, like we're not really seeing like, wow, this is what's better for the environment. Yeah, right. We're like far away from that. No one's gonna talk about the environment for like 60 years or something.

[Kim]

It's more of like a theoretical exploration of your own creativity.

[Amanda]

Exactly, exactly. And artists from that point on continue to integrate secondhand items into their work. I mean, even when I was in art school, so many mixed media projects involving found objects, AKA secondhand items. Think about all of the makers on Instagra right now creating new things out of upcycled fabrics and other materials. And then there were secondhand costumes and other pieces being an integral part of theater and performance art, like always, including now. And so you can see how the creatives of the world really embraced the world of secondhand. You know, plenty of us are cringing with despair over the popularity of secondhand Y2K clothing right now and all of its low rise glory. But what if I told you that that despair of younger people wearing past trends, purchased secondhand actually got its start back in the 1950s, and like a lot of things here at the department, it relates to raccoons.

[Kim]

I'm so glad you get to circle back to raccoons.

[Amanda]

Yeah, whenever we can. So the raccoon. Raccoon fur coat was the it item of the 1920s. And yes, it was made out of raccoon fur.

[Kim]

Wow.

[Amanda]

Yeah.

[Kim]

I can't even imagine wearing a raccoon fur, but, yeah, I get it.

[Amanda]

I can. Yeah, it's. Anyway, this was in the 1920s. It was like the thing. I read an incredible Smithsonian article about the raccoon fur coat and its journey through trends in the last century. I'm going to link to it in the show notes. It's really fascinating. It's way denser than what I'm going to go into here. But you should definitely go read it. It was fascinating to me. So this is from that article. Quote, the heavy and unwieldy furs were popular with Ivy League college men, though some spunky girls also sported them, as well as members of the growing black middle class. Democratic though they may have been, the coats were still undeniable emblems of wealth, often retailing at between 350, $500, about, you know, just a cool $5,000 adjusted for inflation. Yeah. Full length coonskin automobile coats were the it accessory for cruising around a cold New England college town in a Model T and certainly the most appropriate gear for attending college football games. Football star Red Grange and silent movie heartthrob Rudolph Valentino helped launch the fading. And it spread quickly, peaking in popularity between 1927 and 1929. But following the stock market crash, such symbols of wealth, recreation, and youthful frivolity quickly lost popularity in the fiscally lean 1930s, and clothing outlets and department stores were left holding the bag. So that's a thing. This was a hot trend. And like all hot trends, like all Funko Pops of history, retailers bought really heavily into raccoon coats. And then, you know what happened? The trend died.

[Kim]

It died.

[Amanda]

And they were stuck with warehouses full of these coats.

[Kim]

How many raccoons had to die?

[Amanda]

I know. It makes me really sad. I know, I know. Okay, so now we're gonna fast Forward to the 1950s. Architect Stanley Salzman and his wife sue were a popular and affluent couple living in Greenwich Village in New York City. And by then, Even in the 1950s, it was already becoming too expensive for artists to live there. One night, they were hosting a party, and sue told the story of spotting a raccoon fur coat at an antique store. She wanted to buy it, but was a little too hesitant, and another customer bought it first. So this is from the Smithsonian article. As it happened, a party attendee wanted of Stanley Salzman's former architecture students. Gene Futterman volunteered. Great name, great name. Volunteered. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really great. Volunteered A potential source for another coat. And not just one, but also a pile of the old coats. A two 20 year old supply left over from the original trend of the late 1920s.

[Kim]

Oh, my God. Imagine. Imagine how mothball smelling these things were.

[Amanda]

Gross, right?

[Kim]

The stink.

[Amanda]

By one estimate, as many as. Are you ready for this? Two million fur coats moldered away and storehouses.

[Kim]

Two million.

[Amanda]

Yeah. Yeah. So Futterman had a relative who had bales of these fur coats. So soon sue had her coat and enough to gift to 13 of her party guests.

[Kim]

I'm so sorry I have to interrupt because this just reminds me of a Seinfeld episode where like, where like Kramer, like gets a stockpile of fur coats or something. They were like bras or T shirts, but this is. That's what it reminds me of anyway.

[Amanda]

Yeah, it was ripped from the headlines, practically. So ripped.

[Kim]

Yes.

[Amanda]

So Sue Saltzman, she gives away these cards, right? She gets her coat, she gives 13 away and the trend just took off from there. People would see her wearing it. She was like, you know, woman about town, up on the cheese.

[Kim]

Sexy looking.

[Amanda]

Yeah. They would ask her about her coat and then they would buy one. She was super stylish. There's actually a photo in our doc if you scroll down. Like, stunning, really unique style. Right. And remember, this is the 50s when that photo was taken. But she was really into 1920s fashion. So she would wear like the beads, the flapper dress, a floppy hat, the cloche hat. Yeah. And she wore blue black lipstick, which was the trend of the 1920s. What now?

[Kim]

Blue black lipstick.

[Amanda]

So this was definitely not the style norm of the 1950s. I mean, think about 1950s fashion. What do you picture? I picture like, of course, it's like.

[Kim]

The new look, the ysl, that whole thing. This sounds like one of the coolest looks that kind of want to see come back.

[Amanda]

I know.

[Kim]

I mean, minus the fur coat, you know, but like the whole thing is.

[Amanda]

I mean, just imagine like you're out and looking like Donna Reed and you run into this woman dressed like a flapper, wearing blue black lipstick.

[Kim]

Eccentric.

[Amanda]

In a huge fur coat. I know. She's like, obviously one of our people, right?

[Kim]

Yes. Oh, my God. We would be totally friends. I would be there at her party and I would want one of those.

[Amanda]

Fur coats for sure. And that's what would happen. People would see her out, talk to her, and then they wanted to buy into that aesthetic. As well. And so by the. By spring 1957, the Salzmans, who were not even looking to be starting a coat business, had sold about 400 coats. They sourced them in thrift stores, antique shops, and flea markets. According to the Smithsonian, the Salzmans fueled the fur's romantic images by reporting that in one coat, they found a revolver and a mask. In another, a list of speakeasies. I mean, this is some good branding. Well, it is. In June 1957, Glamour published a photo of a raccoon coat listing the Salzmans as suppliers. And soon, Lord and Taylor, now we're talking very mainstream here, was knocking on their door, placing a huge order for these secondhand coats. Lord and Taylor advertised these vintage coats. They actually call them that vintage, promising that each one would, quote, be in a state of magnificent disrepair. Cause these were gross. These were gross, right? Yeah. I mean, like, as you said, they probably smelled bad. They were moth eaten. They'd been sitting, probably not like, I'm pretty sure fur has to be, like, refrigerated. And they've just been sitting in warehouses.

[Kim]

Love to infest this.

[Amanda]

Yeah. So these were. These were gross. Well, now that it was in glamour and in Lord and Taylor, college students went wild for the trend. And it was around this time in the 1950s, that college students emerged as the trendsetters in fashion. So if they were wearing raccoon fur coats, everyone who wanted to feel cool also wanted a raccoon fur coat. Other department stores jumped on it, first selling all of the excess inventory that had been semi rotting in their warehouses for decades. Remember about 2 million of these coats, and that was part of the appeal, the grossness of it all. Stores promised that they would be full of holes and damage. And customers loved this because it made each one unique.

[Kim]

Yeah, I love this. I've never heard of this story.

[Amanda]

But eventually, department stores ran through their own stash. So they reached out to the Salzmans for help. For a while, the Salzmans were able to satisfy that demand. But eventually, they ran out of stock. So then retailers. It's a tale as old as time. They thought, you know what we'll do? We'll just make fake versions of these raccoon fur coats. And customers were like, nope, I wanted a gross one. And so that didn't work, and the trend dried out. Yeah, yeah. Fascinating, right? Right. So that's in the 1950s. Well, by the 1960s, Americans were being urged to buy more new clothes than ever. Space age fabrics like nylon and polyester made clothing cheaper. Although still not as cheap as it is now and exceptionally plentiful, but. But still not as plentiful as it is now either. Mass produced clothing was becoming more and more the norm. While magazines and television dictated fashion trends that created this almost sort of uniformity in how people were dressing. We really. Not that this episode is about the monoculture, but style was quite a monoculture at this point with the vast majority of people adopting the same aesthetic and trends. Right. You would have other people around that, you know, like the flappers of their era or whatever in their blue black lipstick. But in general, it was sort of like most people were kind of dressing the same. But if you were disenchanted with capitalism or the norms of the middle class, your government, et cetera, you're one of those creative types. You didn't want to wear the same clothes your square neighbors and peers were wearing. I would feel the same. I totally get it. And for young people joining the counterculture, remember, this is the 60s. We also have artists, poets, musicians. Secondhand was the thing. Beatniks, hippies and bohemians embrace secondhand clothing as their uniform. So I'm gonna talk about Jennifer Lazotte again. She wrote a book called From Goodwill to Grunge that I plan on ordering this week. I'm gonna link to it in the show notes too, because I think it's worth a read for all of you who find this fascinating. She said, quote, the post war period, and perhaps ever since that was marked by a popular rejection of middle class status. Sometimes this is in a cultural appropriation, wanting to look or act like a minority group. Or with the Beats, it's wanting to slum it with the working class or like, act like you can't afford good clothing. And sometimes it's wanting to show I can't afford to buy old vintage clothing. That takes more care and expertise and that's kind of exhibiting higher than middle class class status. And of course, you and I both will also say, like, it's more unique, right? Especially in this time where, yes, some people are still making their own clothes, but a lot more people are buying brand new clothes. And even a lot of the homemade clothes are very similar to the store bought clothes because the idea is that they're supposed to look like the store bought clothes, right? So there's just not. There's a lot of uniformity. And if you want to stand out, secondhand is going to be the way to go. Also in the 1950s and 60s, here's another new thing I learned working on this. It's not all raccoon coats around here. Big retailers. And when we talk about big retailers in the 50s, 60s, and even the 70s, what we're really talking about are department stores. Like, this is their time, right? Department stores were really complicit in the 8th anti LGBTQ campaign called the lavender scare. They would fire queer employees. They would call the police on people who dared to try on clothing that didn't align with their assigned sex. Queer communities actually found themselves feeling safer in thrift stores and secondhand shops. And so they started doing a lot more of their shopping there rather than at these total narc department stores.

[Kim]

Yeah, exactly.

[Amanda]

So while none of these secondhand shops and thrift stores were, like, putting up signs that said, hey, queer people, welcome. They were sort of turning a blind eye to the people that department stores were rejecting.

[Kim]

I love that. That's awesome.

[Amanda]

Yeah, really awesome. So we get to the end of the 60s, let's see who's into secondhand shopping at this point. We have the counterculture, we have the queer community. We have the creative types. We have beatniks, poets, artists, musicians, people who are super political, people who reject capitalism, people who disdain the middle class.

[Kim]

The hippies.

[Amanda]

The hippies, Right. So we have all of these people shopping secondhand, but not particularly like the mainstream culture. Right. If we use, as we like to around here, the skinny jeans paradox as a lens for viewing the trend cycle of secondhand clothing, we can see that by the end of the 60s, we're kind of in the early years of skinny jeans, where only the most fashion forward people were wearing them. And skinny jeans, just by wearing them were sort of an indicator of uber coolness. If you saw someone out, by the way, here in the 1960s, people are really into 30s and 40s clothing and 20s, if you see saw someone out dressed like that, you were like, oh, that person's cool. Or you might be like, oh, that person is like a weirdo hippie type. I should stay away. Either way, it was an indicator of something. Right? So in the 1970s, secondhand clothing was about to hit the next step in the skinny jeans paradox, becoming a more mainstream, but not totally old navified trend. To truly understand why secondhand clothing would become more mainstream in the 1970s, you have to consider the economic conditions of the time. I'm going to tell you, Kim, back in 2020, when I had lots of time in my hands to think about things, same thing in 2021, I started to.

[Kim]

It's a lot of time.

[Amanda]

See a parallel between the 1970s and the times we're living in right now. And I'm going to list some things that were going on here in the United States, but, like, in general, I mean, take technology out of the picture, because obviously that's like the big dividing difference. And you start to see that there's a similar. Similar time in our. In our culture right now. So the United states in the 1970s was in a state of economic malaise. That's what people were calling it. Economic malaise, as in being, like, not.

[Kim]

Well, yeah.

[Amanda]

For the first time in a very long time, Americans were grappling with the possibility that their children might have a lower standard of living than they have had. This was after years and years, generation and upon generation, of upward growth for the economy. After World War II, the country was experiencing both high unemployment and increasing inflation, a situation that is called, and it's very depressing, stagflation. And the inflation was crazy. It was 11% in 1974, 18% in 1980. I want to say the inflation that we've been talking about was about 6, 7% last year. So this is way higher. Things were getting more and more expensive, and at the same time, people had less money to begin with because so many people were out of work. Ultimately, rising gas prices tripled between 1970 and 1980, and then the overall inflation. All of this really led to the Reagan presidency because people were like, we need something different. Like, every person who was president in the 70s was kind of, like, fucked politically by the economy, and no one could fix it. And then we get Reagan, who's like, I'm gonna fix it. Yes, yes. Spoiler alert. Did not fix it, but people thought it was getting fixed anyway, I found. So I went. I'm so grateful sometimes for my New York Times subscription because you can look through their entire archives. So I can literally go in and set, like, search parameters and be like, I only want to see all the articles about secondhand clothing from the 70s or thrift shopping or whatever. And that is certainly what I did here. And I found a 1975 New York Times article called Thrift. Thrift Shops Rise as Economy Fails. And the article said, if there falls. Falls. Yeah. Thank you. As the economy falls. Fails. Falls. Malaises. Anyway, what are words? If there is an. If there is, what are they? If there is any institution that has profited from the current economic crunch, it is the friendly neighborhood thrift shop. Once the preserve of the poor who had to hunt for bargains to survive, these outlets, usually run by charitable organizations, have become A mecca for the middle class trying to make ends meet. People who wouldn't be caught dead in thrift shops before are competing with the lower socioeconomic group today, said Isabel Wygant, who heads Southampton hospitals outlet. It's the recession. Everyone is looking for bargains. And thrift stores saw substantial growth in their business in the 70s, which allowed them to do several things. One, hire employees. Previously, most thrift stores had been staffed by volunteers, but now they were able to actually pay people to work there. Next, they could invest more money in making the spaces nicer. From displays to fitting rooms to fixtures, Stores leaned into a more department store style setup, which we all are accustomed to now breaking the stores into well organized apartments like men's, women's, kids, home goods. And they adopted visual merchandising strategies. They also added mannequins and mirrors because they were like, we're gonna build. We're making more money, let's make even more money. Because once again, these thrift stores are businesses. This also enabled them to sell more expensive things. So in the past, they could only sell things that were like a few cents, maybe a dollar. Suddenly now they could sell things that were 10 or $20 even. And people would see the value and say, well, you might be charging $20 for that, but that's a $200 co. I'll take it. Thrift stores were also still at this point selling to cool young people who in the 70s were searching for 30s and 40s clothing. But secondhand was becoming more normal and palatable to a mainstream audience. And then we get this book. I don't know if you're. Have you ever heard of this book, Cheap Chic?

[Kim]

I don't think so.

[Amanda]

Okay. I have this book and I actually got it. I don't know, I want to say in the autumn. Actually, back when I was working at Urban Outfitters, we had a design meeting where this book was used as inspiration, ironically, because it really talked about your wardrobe sort of being a reflection of all of your experiences in life rather than just like buying into random trends. Interesting. The irony is not lost on me, but I was like, I want this book. And I bought it and it's really, really cool. It came out in 1974. Once again, it's called Cheap Chic. It was written by Catherine Millionaire and Carol Troy. Both women were, you know, there's this classic creative types in their late 20s and early 30s. This book did enjoy a resurgence in 2015. At that point, the New York Times published an article called Cheap chic Manifesto of a fashion revolution is back. And this tells you a little bit. I had to include this because this tells you who the writers were. So one of its authors, Catherine Millionaire, was a French born photographer, which also could be Millionaire. It could be. I know, I know. So she was a French born photographer, fashion editor and all around it girl who had been lured to American Vogue by Diana Vreeland. And she had all sorts of adventures traveling around the world as a photojournalist. Her co author, Carol Troy was a Vassar educated Californian, had been the New York editor of Rags, a short lived magazine that aimed to do for clothes what Rolling Stone would do for music. So we have two very cool people writing this book. They declared, quote, fashion as a dictatorship of the elite is dead. Nobody knows better than you what you should wear or how you should look. So I have the 1978 version. Because this book was so successful, they did an update, cleverly titled Cheap Chic Update. My copy has a pink cover. Essentially both books build themselves as a bible for young women looking to dress well for work and for social events while working within a budget. This book was pretty groundbreaking at the time, still kind of is because it included an entire chapter about thrift shopping and how to do it. I will say that this book does have many flaws that don't age well. There's a little bit of diet culture in the beginning. It could be worse I guess is my, my statement on that. They also refer to Prince as ethnic, which you know, I don't love. But it does have a lot of great advice that feels more relevant than ever for the slow fashion movement. For one, the importance of cultivating a unique personal style. They say in the book, quote, the stuff in this book applies to a trip to Bloomingdale's, Neiman Marcus or Imagining as well as a trip to Woolworths, which for all of you who are way too young to know what Woolworths is, it was like the five and dime, right? A very low price store in a world before Walmart and Target wearing. We're merely encouraging you to embrace your own style and express your own individuality with confidence. You have the freedom to sidestep designer dictatorship and make the clothes you spend your money on work for you. You rather than making you work for your clothes.

[Kim]

Oh, there you go.

[Amanda]

I like that, I like that.

[Kim]

That's a really good motto.

[Amanda]

Another thing is that cheap doesn't mean unethical or low quality. Millionaire or millionaire if you will. Told the New York Times Cheap Cheek wasn't about cheap Stuff I always worried about the high price of chasing cheap, the human cost. Whatever comes out of the sweatshops is not what we want to be wearing on our backs. Next. There was no focus on brands or labels, which was very unlike any fashion media at that point. It was really more about knowledge and access to developing your own personal style. And even the last page of the book was a laundry care guide. It also focused.

[Kim]

This is a great book.

[Amanda]

It's a great book. I know. It also focused on a wardrobe of a few good pieces that make you feel good, rather than just having a closet jammed full of novelty stuff you never wear. It also, like I said, encouraged readers to shop secondhand. In addition to an entire chapter about thrift stores, the book included an index of flea markets and secondhand shops in the U.S. canada, and Europe. I'm assuming that's why they had to publish an update.

[Kim]

An update, yeah, of course.

[Amanda]

So I wanted to read the introduction to the secondhand section because I think it really nails, like, where or how close. I guess I would say secondhand clothing is getting to the mainstream at this point in the 70s, so it says. Up until a few years ago, wearing some strangers old clothes was something only the poorest people did when forced to. Can you imagine your mother buying used clothes except in an almost new shop with prices to match? But as everyone is discovering, it feels good to wear expensive clothes, especially when someone else paid for them the first time out. And today, it can be a positive joy to track down that one beautiful item of used clothing you have your heart set on. As chic antique clothing boutiques proliferate. Even smart department stores are carrying antiques, and the quality never seems to run out. Old clothes give you a sense of continuity with the past, an elegant way of life lived in luxurious fabrics of strict tailoring, a life of fluttering, afternoon rituals and evening formalities. Solid old clothes give you a feeling that in this throwaway world world, there are still some things that can last 10, 20, 30, 40 years or more and remain beautiful. And if you have the instincts of a bloodhound, they can be in your very own closet. So I'm gonna scan some stuff from this book because there's a lot of really amazing fashion. Disappointingly, it's all in black and white. I mean, this is a book from the 70s, but it's so cool. I'm like, I want to be friends with all these people, you know, But I love how they're saying, like, hey, we're talking about, like, this new thing that is wearing secondhand Clothes that your mom probably feels weird with. But guess what? Like, this is the time for it. Like, this is the cool new thing. This is a secret we're letting you into that no one else knows. But here's the thing. This book was a bestseller. Bestseller enough to print an update three years later. Right. So this was popular enough and popularizing enough the idea of secondhand shopping that it was going to become a more mainstream pastime. Inevitably during this time period, you know, in 1978, secondhand clothing became such a big deal that the New York Times published a big article full of so much good info, it was called Rags to Riches. It's really fascinating to me. This is where I'm like, oh my gosh, it's almost like I'm reading about now. Like, if I took some of the vocabulary out of here and changed up some of the dates, you would think I was talking about right now. Basically, like, thanks to the terrible economic conditions of the 1970s, more and more people found themselves shopping secondhand. According to the New York Times, quote, quote, the boom in secondhand clothes, which has bred hundreds of new stores in urban centers around the country, is now bringing department stores such as Macy's, Abraham Strauss and BAM Burgers into the market. So, you know, once you get the department stores in this.

[Kim]

Yeah, exactly.

[Amanda]

Now your mom is buying secondhand clothing. You know, not only were stores opening all over the US with the sole focus of selling secondhand clothing to middle class customers, department stores were getting in on the action, creating entire departments filled solely with pre worn clothing. I mean, this is a big deal. This is like the poshmark of then, right?

[Kim]

Yeah, exactly. That is so fascinating.

[Amanda]

Customers were loving it. Macy's reported that customers were preferring 40s and 50s clothing specifically. Once again, we're in the late 70s at this point.

[Kim]

Yeah.

[Amanda]

Of course they could not get enough small secondhand shops worried that the department stores were actually driving up costs because of course they were buying these clothes by the palette rather than by the piece, like smaller shops. So it is a controversial move. Right. And small businesses are like, you department stores are going to destroy our business by doing this. In fact, department stores were selling this stuff so fast, they actually struggle to obtain enough inventory. Why? Well, for one, people weren't buying nearly as many new clothes as they do now. So there weren't quite as many secondhand clothes in the system. But the thing was, there was still plenty of secondhand clothing to go around. Logistics for the secondhand industry were just not as robust as they are now. And Three other factors were at play. One, thrift stores who remember our businesses, did not want to give up market share. After all, they've been seeing their sales grow and grow through the 70s. And the second factor was that rag yards, aka the large logistical companies that collect secondhand clothing and dispose of it, send it off to be turned into rags or shipped to other people. They already had a really robust and profitable business selling secondhand American clothing overseas. And the last factor, factor number three, was that the middle class was feeling the pinch of inflation so hard that rather than donating their unwanted stuff, they sold it at flea markets and yard sales on their own to generate a little bit of extra cash. So much of this reminds me of right now, just in, like, every way, right? Because thrift stores are being really aggressive about going after customers. Goodwill, I was reading, like last year, I wanna say maybe the year before that, hit $1 billion in sales on their website. Yeah, yeah, it's huge.

[Kim]

And Derek, who is one of our friends, manages that.

[Amanda]

Right. So, like, there's like, thrift stores are like, we're businesses. We're finding new ways to reach customers, too. We have a ton of clothes still being shipped overseas, and people are just reselling their own stuff. Maybe not at yard sales as much, and more likely either at places like Buffalo Exchange or on one of these resale platforms. Well, thrift stores were not going to just give up business to the department stores either. They fought back by campaigning aggressively for donations, and they revisited other aspects of the business. This is from the New York Times article. The Salvation Army, a giant among nonprofit thrift outlets, is making a concerted effort to upgrade its stores across the country to compete with the new wave of retailers. They have both expanded the market and made it more competitive, says Raymond F. Howell, who is in charge of the Salvation Army's collection program in the New York City area. Revenues at Salvation army shops in the area are about. Up about 15% from last year, he says. How will the Salvation army meet the new competition from the large department stores? Aggressively, says Major Howe. We will do more piggybacking, whatever they promote into fashion. We will set up special racks for. And raise our prices to get in on the fashion action. So there was. This was like. This is just so similar to right now.

[Kim]

Yeah, exactly.

[Amanda]

And then there was the global secondhand clothing trade once again, not as wild and damaging as it is now, but still a big business. The New York Times says Harvey Schiffrin, another great name, runs a large rag warehouse in Queens as well as Noamex Inc. An export company. He considers himself a fashion rag dealer. More than 50% of his secondhand clothing is sold overseas. Europeans buy it because they have a passion for secondhand American fashion. They've been buying it for years. Mr. Sheffrin offers a special explanation of the evolution of international high fashion. When he gets a big collection of old clothes from his sources around the country, rag dealers who are less fashion minded than he is, he sends it to a back burner market like Amsterdam to see how it does there. He says, if it goes, I start shipping to the Paris flea markets and usually I have a fashion hit. Then American designers spot it and claim it as their own. Most of the recent so called fashion innovations have been stolen from Parisians wearing old American American clothes, which does add up to me based on my stands for any fashion. But the New York Times did ask some designers for comment and they were like, no, he's lying. But I do think he's actually telling the truth.

[Kim]

Yeah, I think he's telling the truth. I'm sure he's seen it firsthand.

[Amanda]

Right? Right. So, you know, we've got department stores are selling clothing, secondhand clothing. We've got a bunch of it being shipped overseas. We have thrift stores saying, we're gonna beat you at your own gate. This is a big time for secondhand shopping. And while many businesses were being successful financially with thanks to this rise in the popularity of secondhand shopping, not everyone was super stoked about it. For example, a guy named Mr. Russack, who was a comedian who forsook the nightclub circuit for the secondhand trade. In 1969, he bought unclaimed clothes from Brooklyn cleaner and sold them at his first store, Thrift Village in Brooklyn. I began by selling to poor people at low prices, Mr. Rustak recalls. But pretty soon I noticed a lot of young people coming in looking for fashion. So I changed my tack. He started getting merchandise from rag merchants. As his business prospered, Mr. Russak spent more and more hours hunched over large piles of garments in Brooklyn warehouses, hunting out things he could sell as fashion items to young shoppers. We used to buy dresses for 50 cents and overcoats for $2. Then everybody found out about it. Every hippie who finally decided he had to support himself went into the secondhand clothing business. It was natural for them, but it was the beginning of the end for me. He is not into this.

[Kim]

No, he does not want those hippies, right, getting in on his game.

[Amanda]

Right when they have to decide they have to support themselves. Disdain is clear so let's recap where we are. By the late 70s, young people, the queer community and creative types are still loving secondhand shopping because it is a safe space and an outlet for creative personal expression. Middle class people are getting into secondhand clothing because it is more affordable. So much so that department stores are getting in on the game. Smaller businesses in the secondhand area are frustrated because this is driving up pricing and creating sourcing issues. And thrift stores are raising prices and aggressively going out for business via merchandising and marketing. This is so reflective of the time we're in right now. Even down to, like, I want to say it was around 2019, department stores like Nordstrom and Macy's started to have partnerships with Thredup where they would have sections of secondhand clothing in their stores. I don't think it was super successful probably because then the pandemic came and like really squashed it. But like this, everybody's been trying to get in on it. Like, Zara is trying to launch their own resale platform. I heard with a lot of laughter that she and is, you know, everybody is trying to be like, how can we get in on the game?

[Kim]

Yeah, because, because, you know, you're losing or there's money potential that you're leaving on the table. All where they could be taking a cut of people who already bought something. Yeah, it's basically just like, it's just, it's, it's taking a little bit more, getting a little bit more, taking those like nickel and diming it, but giving them getting it on the trend as well.

[Amanda]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I will tell you, like, when I, you know, my last job before the pandemic was working for the new rental arm of a large, fast fashion conglomerate here in the US and, and they started the rental platform because they were seeing that there was kind of like a ceiling that all the entire fashion industry was hitting in terms of how much new clothing people would buy. Like, we kind of maxed out. We weren't going to buy more clothing than we were already buying. Like, we're going to keep buying new clothing at this really high rate, but it couldn't grow beyond that. And so it was like, what are other ways, other revenue streams that we can get into? And rental was one of them. And, you know, then they launched a resale arm too, which I think might be, they might be moving away from now, really. But it was all about like, how can we get, how can we continue to see growth in this industry that has already basically maxed out how much stuff it can sell people. And when you think of someone like, say Zara saying like, okay, we're gonna launch our own second hand platform. So you get Zara selling you the garment and getting your money in the first place. Right. And then when you resell it to someone else, they take a cut of that sale too. So they're double dipping. And that's, that's kind of the only way I can imagine retailers growing the fashion industry beyond where it is. Because it's already like unsustainable as it is. Like, people aren't going to buy even more clothes than they already are. Or at least I hope they're not going to. So, so I have. My question for you is like, based on what we've talked about so far, and using skinny jeans as our measuring stick for like the, you know, the life cycle of trends, where do you think secondhand fashion, secondhand shopping is in comparison to the skinny jeans life cycle by the end of the 1970s?

[Kim]

Ooh. So we're kind of talking about how the main celebrities are wearing it. The ones that are wearing it with like a juicy couture top.

[Amanda]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kim]

Like, so we're kind of, we're kind of in the mid aughts of the skinny jean where skinny jeans are starting to be worn by more and more people. They haven't been totally diluted, but it's definitely a thing.

[Amanda]

Right, Right. I think we have it.

[Kim]

You got an ugg?

[Amanda]

They're tucked into an ugg is what I'm saying. Yeah. Like we're getting into jegging territory where like just.

[Kim]

Yeah, just before jegging territory where it's like. Yeah, the jegging. That weird, weird knit thing. I mean, who knows what that's made out of?

[Amanda]

Yeah, yeah. I never understood the jeggings. Cause they were like, the ones we sold where I worked were like pull on. I mean, they were leggings that were like 1% denim with like a fake, A fake pocket.

[Kim]

You couldn't use it, but it was a fake pocket.

[Amanda]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I specifically have this like very deep memory of putting a pair of like fuchsia colored jeggings on a mannequin.

[Kim]

Oh, God. Yeah. Just puking. Puking a little in your mouth.

[Amanda]

Yeah. So that's where we were probably like a fake distressed rock tea or something.

[Kim]

Yeah, yeah.

[Amanda]

So that's where we are with secondhand clothing by the 1970s, the end of the 70s. And like I just, I see everything that's happening now, happening then if you just take you know, tech platforms out of, out of the equation. We've got got mainstream shopping outlets, the biggest retailers having entire departments of secondhand clothing. I mean, that is like a really big deal. We've got thrift stores, like, upping prices and figuring out new ways to bring in customers. Not unlike now. You know, like I said, thrift stores launching their own websites or selling on ebay or doing all kinds of other things. We got still a lot of the secondhand clothing in circulation being shipped out of the country. We've got small businesses saying, I can't even afford to buy inventory for my stores now because the department stores are eating it all up. One thing that no one is talking about in the late 70s, which is probably just a function of the time, is people weren't thinking about things in terms of social justice and economic equity. But for sure, at this point, I'm sure someone somewhere was saying, it's getting harder for low income people to have access to secondhand clothing. I would assume that that is the conversation. Then again, maybe not. I'm assuming that no one's bringing it up in the New York Times because nobody's thinking about that kind of stuff in a big way, especially in like the, you know, the, the mainstream media. But maybe. Awesome. No one was saying that. It's hard for me to say, but we definitely have a lot of the same conversations happening that we have right now. But there was nowhere to go and fight about it because people weren't going to get into fist fights about it in public. And we didn't have Instagram yet. Yes, of course.

[Kim]

You couldn't vocalize it amongst everyone and start harassing people like Amanda.

[Amanda]

Yeah, exactly. So we're gonna stop here. We're gonna put, we're gonna hit pause here in say, 1979, and we'll resume next week as we look at the trend cycle of secondhand clothing in the 80s, 90s and this century. They're gonna be ups, they're gonna be downs, there's gonna be a lot of nostalgia.

[Kim]

That's interesting. I'm actually really excited to hear.

[Amanda]

Well, I'm glad, because you're like, required to be here for it.

[Kim]

Yes, I am. Just that you have to have someone to talk to.

[Amanda]

Exactly. I can't just be over here talking out loud to the wall about raccoon coats. Oh. Side note, I am not going to go too deeply into this, but speaking of raccoons. So I was scrolling through Instagram in bed last night when I should have been sleeping, and someone posted a picture of something they'd bought from, like, Sheen or some other ultra fast fashion retailer. I don't know. It could have been AliExpress. I'm not really sure. And the tag in it, it was like a t shirt, said 100% raccoon.

[Kim]

What?

[Amanda]

I know. No one's. No one. People were speculating on it, but there was just like. No one was like, I have no idea. Wow. Weird. But apparently, listen, there was a time where we were making clothes out of raccoons, so. Which sounds so wild to me.

[Kim]

I know. You know, my grandfather used to have a mink farm, which I was. I still think is just so wild also. And I feel really about it. Bad for the minks.

[Amanda]

Yeah.

[Kim]

But, you know, that was just like the culture.

[Amanda]

Yeah.

[Kim]

You know, but back in the day of having mink farms in, like, the northern Wisconsin.

[Amanda]

Wisconsin's got it all, man. Fur industry, great cheese. Yeah. You know, American girls started there. It's got it all.

[Kim]

Beer, A lot of beer. I mean. Yeah. Pretty much everything that you like. Amanda. Besides, maybe, you know, fur. It's all in Wisconsin.

[Amanda]

Yeah.

[Kim]

You have to come. You have to come.

[Amanda]

I know. You know what? My only friend in Austin moved to Wisconsin and I'm always like, oh, man, maybe there is something to this.

[Kim]

Yeah. Yeah, there is.

[Amanda]

All right, well, that's all we have for you this week. And we'll be back next week.

[Kim]

All right, bye. Thank you. It.