For decades, we’ve acted on the notion that donating our unwanted clothes to thrift stores is charitable, a way to extend the life cycle of our clothes and to reduce fashion waste to landfill. This is all true.
To an extent.
With the increasing rise of fast fashion over the last two decades and an estimated 150 billion being manufactured each year, this notion has become malignant for the most part.
With this mass onslaught, came the reduction in clothes quality.
A huge portion of our unsold second-hand garments from thrift stores, clothing bins, charity collections and the like get shipped to countries in the global South for profit, also often under the guise of charity.
Considering this linear process has been increasing in the last couple of decades, do we ever think about what happens to our fashion castoffs once they hit foreign shores? Or question if this growing linear loop is healthy or is it creating an environmental disaster elsewhere in the world?
Have we thought to consider whether poorer nations need our ‘charity’ or do they, perhaps need justice and equity?
How did this all begin for me?
I was born in Nigeria, grew up in the USA, and lived in Nigeria (West Africa) as a teenager. A vivid memory from my teenage years combines my love of style and my later studies in international development.
It was one of the happiest days of my life. It was the day I began shopping for secondhand clothes as a teenager in Nigeria.
They were all imported from countries in the global North (the richest countries in North America, Europe, and Australia).
The sight of colourful, vintage, retro and trendy fashion in a shop window grabbed me by the throat and drew me into the thrift store like it was Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Seeing the eclectic range of fashion styles from different eras was like being in Aladdin’s cave of treasures.
I was spellbound for several hours playing dress-up until the shop closed.
Little did I know that that was the eureka moment that would shape my life purpose and career in sustainable fashion and international development. I frequented these shops as often as I could with a kind of ferocious enthusiasm that I had never experienced before that day.