SNOHOMISH COUNTY — In every generation, there are fashion trends. Old or new, these styles never truly fade, they just move on to the next person’s wardrobe. In recent decades, the coolest, hippest thing to wear was the newest Nike Air Jordans or other high-profile, brand name clothes, but a new trend has emerged among today’s youth: thrifting.
It combines the practical with the inquisitive. Second-hand stores like Value Village, St. Vincent DePaul and Goodwill have existed for years, but today’s teens are placing new a premium on what’s sold at these locations.
For Lake Stevens 9th grader, Sina Braaten, thrifting started when she was in Kindergarten.
“I’ve already kind of thrifted a lot when I was younger with my mom,” Braaten shared. “But I would thrift things, not clothes—just things like toys and appliances with my family. Then one of my best friends, who thrifts all of her clothes, inspired me. Her style is so unique, and she just has such great clothes. So I thought, hey, maybe I could thrift sometime. It just happened to be that a thrift store opened right next to my house—pretty much like a mile away—so I could just walk to it. I started thrifting there, and I found some pretty good stuff.”
Brendan Stinson, a rising 10th grader from Snohomish, is on the look-out for watches and hats. He tells EverettPost.com, “they can be quite expensive buying them from bidding websites and apps.” He frequents a series of antique shops in his hometown to search for what he wants. “So, just going there myself and looking to see what they have is a lot easier than having to spend a $100 for something that might cost $20 somewhere else.”
Braaten and Stinson share a similar attitude about the appeal of thrifting that you wouldn’t initially associate with a teenager. “Every piece has a story behind it”, he shares. “Just knowing that it has a backstory…gives it so much more life and character.”
Braaten, in a separate interview, acknowledges, in a moment of mature self-awareness that belies her years, “The more you go to the thrift stores, the more you appreciate each thing that’s there. It kind of just shows you the beauty in everything, even though someone wanted to get rid of it.”
It used to be that teen girls would go to the mall to hang out but now it seems that teen girls are spending more and more time at thrift stores with their friends looking at all the donations, finding hidden gems, trying on forgotten outfits and all for much cheaper than a trip to the mall. Both our economic and cultural habits are changing.
Thrifting has completely transformed from a quiet, budget-saving trick into a major lifestyle trend, especially in teen culture right now. On a recent July day, teenagers were teeming around the Goodwill outlet on Casino Road in Everett, known popularly among shoppers there as “the bins”. The parking lot at “the bins” this particularly July Friday at lunch time is so full, the office complex across the street has a sign in the parking lot warning there’s no parking on their side of the street because of the dearth of parking at Goodwill.
Piles of donations are collected by Goodwill and at the Casino Road outlet center, those donations are just all thrown together in rows of large bins, completely unsorted, containing clothes, accessories, toys, even tech devices.
What you find at the bins you pay for by weight, not individual item price, adding to the extraordinary bargain—if you’re willing to take the time to look through superfluous items.
“If you don’t have a problem with putting your time in looking through the racks and bins and all that,” Braaten recommends, “then, even if you just came for one thing, just look anyway. Sometimes you’ll find some really good stuff because I’ve gone and I like to say I’m coming for one thing, and I end up buying five things and spending less than $20 somehow.”
Thrifting isn’t strictly about bargains, its also social. Today’s teens are characterized for being “screenagers”—always staring into their smartphone. The art of thrifting, Braaten says, is best among a group of friends.
“In general, I just love spending time with my friends, but I feel like with friends,” she says, instead of being by yourself to shop is more fun, “because sometimes they’ll find things that’ll be like, hey, I think this will really suit you. You should try it on. And then there’s sometimes I’ve tried it on and I’ve really loved it, and I’ve gotten it, and it becomes part of like my everyday outfits.”
Conversely, she admits, there can be a difference in taste when a friend suggests clothing for you, “And then other times you’re just like. ‘Okay, um, that’s interesting’ (implying a polite answer when you disagree). I think it’s more fun with friends.”
Goodwill even pitches shoppers to thrift through the implication of carbon footprint, writing on one store website, “Shopping pre-loved items cuts down textile waste, lowers carbon footprints, and avoids the heavy environmental costs of mass-produced fast fashion.”
Upcycling discarded apparel and accessories isn’t something people do just out of necessity anymore, teens do it because sometimes the coolest stuff is the old stuff.
Thrifting can unlock new appreciation and curiosity for the past. According to Stimson. “Styles have definitely evolved over time. I really liked the designs that they chose to do back in the 1930s to the 1960s. It was…the Golden Age of a bunch of items. The Golden Age of comic books, the Golden Age of Stetson hats, the Golden Age of cars as well,” he says in reverence. “And it’s something I think we should cherish.”
To gauge the value of what he finds, Stinson says he does his own internet research by searching model numbers on watches and labels on hats. “For example, a hat might say Stetson on it and it will give a specific year. So I look for that sort of thing.”
Some teens are shrewd enough to pinpoint that value and re-sell the desirable discoveries they’ve found thrifting to turn a profit, but both Braaten and Stimson say that’s easier said than done. Poshmark, Vinted, Depop and ThredUp are some of the popular apps and sites that facilitate re-sale but they also take a chunk of the sale for their cut and the shipping and handling cost can chew into how much somebody is willing to pay for your item.
During summer break, Sally Ashby, manager of the St. Vincent DePaul Store at 6424 Broadway, in Everett, says she sees more teens searching the racks. “Almost every day they come in and shop” she tells EverettPost.com. “They try to get the bargains, and I think it’s their thing to do. Hang out with your friends and go thrifting now.”
She says, “before school was out, like they were on the holiday (break), they would come in, but now, yeah, you see it all the time,” in St. Vincent DePaul, “which is really cool.”
The last chapter of thrifting is showing off your new discoveries. Ashby says she even sees it happening in the store aisles before the customers arrive at the cash-register. ““Yeah, yeah, they’re usually making their little videos in here. People talk about (what they found), on Tik Tok. That is a big, huge thing for teenagers,” Ashby says of the videos shoppers post showing off the new clothes they just bought and the euphoria of the deal they got thrifting.
Stinson reinforces the point, advising, thrifting “is not a style. It’s more of a cause. It’s not you trying to wear something. It’s how it’s worn.”
Asked to calculate how much of her wardrobe is from thrifting compared to newly-bought clothes, Braaten contemplates the arithmetic, then says, “I just have so many clothes, but a lot of it I’ve gotten from my friends. They thrifted it, then gave it to me. So in total, all my clothes that have been thrifted, probably, yeah, like half.”
North Sound Media interns, Olivia Kaloger and Nathan Haryanto both contributed to this story.