Ethical clothing- is it possible?

[bae]

I can understand why some people turn their noses up at the concept of thrift stores if that's what's available.

My very fashionable 23 year old daughter gets almost all of her wardrobe from thrift shops, but she has some supernatural gift for finding amazing treasures.

[iris lilies]

I am both a shopper at and a donator to thrift stores. I have to watch to make sure clothing is not stained because they do put stained items out on the sales floor.


I need a new crockpot and I will definitely get it from a thrift store. My need is not immediateSo I will watch out for the right deal. I missed one a few weeks ago, I didnt buy it because I wasn’t sure it was big enough.I went in the next day and it was gone.

[kib]

I'm willing to examine closely for permanent stains and other damage like a broken zipper or missing button, for $4.99 I don't expect stores to be that thorough. I guess my expectation is that someone made a small effort to make the item appealing - i.e. it is washed, not wrinkled beyond reckoning, and it doesn't smell bad. If I think it came out of the laundry hamper, and a store is willing to sell it that way, that's gross.

IL, beyond clothes my favorite items are those that may have been bought as a novelty and are apparently nearly new. You know someone got a crock pot or a yogurt maker for Christmas one year and it's been in the closet since 1982, or made one attempt at sous vide with a $200 gadget and said "not for me". I found a brand new donut pan for $1 and DH has made at least 20 batches of baked keto donuts to both our delight. To each his own!

What I've found rarely works out well are items that 'everyone' uses. A stick blender likely doesn't work well, a coffee machine has six years of scale inside it, a space heater rattles like thunder, an electric blanket warms by 2 degrees and shuts off.

One of my questions when thrifting is "why". If I can come up with a good reason someone would give this away - changing taste, bad fit, useless gift, I'm more likely to consider it. If the answer is probably "wore it out", not so much.

- and yes, I would definitely thrift a crockpot. The old ones just last forever, and with the new Insta Pot craze, I'm sure there are some to be found at a great bargain.

[catherine]

"In the old days" we made our clothes. Of course, we still had to buy the fabric. Who knew where that came from? Who knew how socially conscious McCall's and Simplicity patterns were? I loved making my own clothes--it was such a creative endeavor. My heart would race when I had the pattern in my hand and was faced with hundreds of bolts of material. That was when the most popular girl in class (Ann Marie G.) could compliment a nobody like me on having a really cool outfit. And no one else could get it.

But, if we make our own clothes, somebody else does not have that means of employment.

I do support companies like Patagonia for its socially conscious efforts. And I'm happy to support others. But I really don't buy a lot of clothes. I've actually been criticized and made fun of for that.

[Teacher Terry]

Kib, thrift stores do not wash clothes. They just hang them up. I know that because we used to place our clients there.

[kib]

TT, I think Savers either does wash them, or discards the things that come in unwashed or donates them to a shelter. I almost never come across anything that's repulsive, although it might not be in good enough condition to buy.

[Teacher Terry]

I always take clean clothes to them. They probably throw away dirty clothes.

[rosarugosa]

Our local Savers and SA don't wash clothes because you can see where the stuff comes in and then you see them bringing things out to the floor. In fact, once we were donating a table to Savers and we had unscrewed the legs for transport. They wouldn't take it unless we attached the legs (which we did) saying they didn't have the resources to repair or assemble items. And then there is that thrift store smell! I imagine they throw anything that is utterly disgusting.

[kib]

I actually marvel at the opposite: the spotless white tee shirt that has obviously been laundered to perfection many many times. No spots, no underarm stains, no stretching. Beaten into submission and soft as a cotton ball. I want to meet the person who owns this, who I imagine to be something like a smooth stick with the bark peeled off, or perhaps an egg - barely nubbled and completely sweat-less, not to mention graceful as a cat while eating.

[happystuff]

I don't buy clothing often at all, but any I get from the thrift store come home and directly into the washer, regardless of how it looks.