Like many 15-year-olds before her, my daughter loves to imagine herself in new clothes. However, her imagination and our family’s clothing budget don’t always align. We’ve been talking about wants versus needs since she was in kindergarten, but we still disagree: I tend to think most things are wants, and she’s more inclined to think everything is a need.
Regardless of our personal definitions, it’s true that she needs clothes sometimes. While I try to take advantage of sales at her favorite mall stores, the timing doesn’t always work in our favor. So when she showed me her shopping cart on an online resale site, I saw an opportunity — and took it.
I learned Gen Z has embraced thrifting
She was excited to show me her finds, among which were a couple of cute tops and several pairs of jeans. It was the first time she’d expressed any interest in secondhand clothes, despite my efforts to convince her that treasures could be found in other people’s closets.
Secondhand clothes were a normal part of my childhood in the 80s and 90s. I loved getting a box of “hand-me-downs” because that was the only way for me to own clothes from the mall stores I wished my mom could take me to. Some of my favorite clothing items from my youth first belonged to someone else.
When I discovered that Gen Z is actually into thrifting, I was thrilled. Still, I didn’t want to let my daughter buy things without seeing them in person. The popularity of fast fashion means that the quality of the clothes being resold could be less than great. And then there’s the issue of fit: sizing can be wildly different from brand to brand. Buying something with only a bad internet photo to guide you isn’t the best practice, especially if you’re an inexperienced shopper.
By visiting a resale shop in person, I could teach her what was a good purchase and what was not
We discovered a clothing resale store in our area that targets younger people. The store only sells clothing and accessories, so it felt more like a familiar shopping experience to her.
We looked at prices and brand tags and decided against buying anything we could get right now for the same price at Target or Walmart. She found a couple of name-brand tops that would normally be out of our price range, but the real winner for us both was jeans.
In my opinion, denim is the best thing to shop for at a resale shop because it is so expensive. She was able to find a pair of jeans in a cut she wanted that the stores in the mall don’t sell right now. I even found jeans — I was excited to find a pair of Levi’s 501s in my size, similar to a pair I used to own. More importantly, she “approved” of the jeans, which made the whole experience more fun.
We paid for 6 items at the resale shop, compared to 2 at the mall
Our resale outing was definitely a success. I was proud of my daughter’s choices, and she was so impressed with the savings that she couldn’t wait to go back. So we did.
A few weeks later, we returned to the same store, but this time we took advantage of their offer to buy used clothes. To my surprise, the amount they paid us for our clothes was greater than the price of the clothes we’d picked out to purchase. Which meant we spent nothing, and clothes that were taking up space in our house have a new home. Honestly, that just felt like a bonus since one of our finds included a dress that would have cost five times the price listed on the tag had we bought it new.
Although thrifting is definitely a trend for Gen Z right now, I prefer to present it to my daughter as a tool to use in the future. When fashion changes and the new styles aren’t the right fit, it will be helpful for her to know how to find the clothes she wants. She will soon have her own money to spend, so I want to help her become a smarter shopper now instead of her learning the hard way later.
I might not know everything about what Gen Z likes these days, but I know pinching your pennies never goes out of style.
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