The increased use of second-hand clothing means that sites like Vinted and Depop
are exploding in popularity, with millions of users worldwide.
Both the sites seem like an amazing idea for sustainability, instead of throwing out
old clothes that will eventually end up in landfills, people are reselling clothes that
other people wear for years, and who might end up selling it, and so on. As a daily
user of the site, I can affirm that the sites are a great place to buy clothes, especially
on a budget.
But how useful is this for Combating Fast fashion?
The Sustainability aspect of these sites might have been the case at the start, but
new trends are emerging. Instead of selling clothes that are pre worn, sellers,
especially on Depop, seem to be treating the site as a business and in fact
contributing to fast fashion by buying more clothes to sell. Similarly, people are
buying clothes more, because they are so cheap, and wearing items only once. For
example, if you need an outfit for an event, or a fancy-dress costume, vinted or
Depop are the places to go. But these pieces are only worn once and often thrown
out, and then end up in a landfill anyway. As well as this, Depop and Vinted are a key
site for fast fashion trends, and again, people are buying one item to fit into a trend
and then never wearing it again.
Aren’t secondary sites good for fast fashion anyway?
It some ways, yes. It is combating the fast fashion industry by creating competition
with fast fashion brands such as Zara, Shien and H&M, making such businesses
rethink their sustainability policies and resale sections. We are even seeing resale
sections pop up in some high street shops, as well as in online stores, such as
Urban outfitters or Asos. But this does not help the fast fashion consequence of over
consumption. Resale means that people are buying more, continuedly keeping up
with trends, especially when it is sold for a profit. A lot of students especially are self-
proclaimed ‘Depop sellers’ but will over price items to make a profit, often just buying
clothes for the sake of selling them. How does this help the Planet?
What can be done to help this?
One suggestion that could help is to limit the selling of fast fashion on these sites,
which directly comes from the consumer. For example, if a seller is selling an item
from Shien, it would be best to avoid this, as it directly going against the point of the
site. To actually combat fast fashion, we need to fix ethical labour practices,
production cycles and get rid of unstainable trends.