The Inabilities & Abilities of Sustainability
Graphic by Quynh-Nhi.
Have you ever wondered what fashion sustainability looks like at Northwestern? We surveyed about 50 students to gauge their thoughts and experiences surrounding thrifting and sustainable fashion.
Graphic by Quynh-Nhi.
Approximately 85% of people responded that they have thrifted at least once; but at a school as economically diverse as Northwestern, those respondents have a variety of different reasons for thrifting.
For some low-income students, thrifting may not only have been a no-brainer in shopping sustainably, but also the only option.
“I didn’t know that I was living in a low-income household,” says Kendall Roman, an assistant manager at Crossroads Trading, a secondhand clothing store. “It felt like going to thrift stores was like a shopping spree for us… Secondhand has always been a part of who I am.”
Stores like Crossroads, which is right down the street from Northwestern’s campus, differ in many ways from traditional thrift stores, such as Goodwill or Salvation Army.
“What makes us different is us,” Roman says. “We go through every item in the store and curate our racks.”
Unfortunately for NU students, the differences continue from there. One survey respondent states that the primary reason they don’t thrift more often is because other thrift stores are inconvenient. Another response addresses how the costs of sustainable fashion also provide a barrier.
Two NU students observed these barriers and took these disparities into their own hands. Sam Liu and Melissa Batz founded NU Thrift (NUTS) in 2020, and the initiative has been spreading its roots on campus ever since.
According to its mission statement, NU Thrift was founded to “divert clothing and dorm necessities from Northwestern’s waste streams and redistribute these items to the Northwestern community, primarily first-generation, low-income (FGLI) students.”
Pricing for clothing at this prospectively permanent on-campus thrift store would be affordable across-the-board, unlike other thrift options such as Crossroads, or even online options like Depop. At NU Thrift pop-ups, each item is a flat $2, whether it’s an expensive winter coat or a t-shirt.
Pricing like this is rare for any type of store, let alone thrift stores. While affordable pricing is a norm in most thrift stores (e.g. Goodwill or Salvation Army), it's a rarity when buying new clothes.
Economic budgets force many consumers to turn to fast fashion, which is the clothing industry’s solution to keeping up with the ever changing and always evolving ups and downs of the fashion world. Fast fashion pushes for shortcuts in clothing production, whether that be through unfair wages, inhumane working conditions and worse quality clothing overall.
Fast fashion, in recent years, has brought a new facet to fashion sustainability — or more accurately, unsustainability.
“I’m just happy if fast fashion ends up [at Crossroads] instead of the trash,” Roman says. “The life expectancy of these clothes is usually a month or two after a couple of washes.”
These new clothes are not made for long-term durability. Apps such as TikTok and Instagram exacerbate the fashion trend cycle. The new term “microtrends” describes this process.
Microtrends come and go as quickly as the weather in Evanston changes. When these trends leave the fashion cycle, they quite literally leave. If they don't end up in stores like Crossroads or other thrift stores, they might end up just getting thrown away.
While fast fashion does have negative effects, cheap prices increase access to new, on-trend clothing. Sustainability often falls to the wayside because of its price tag.
“Most new sustainable clothing brands are also extremely expensive,” says another Northwestern survey response. “It would be great if these could be made more accessible for people of all incomes.”
However, affordability is not what's holding everyone back. From our student survey, around 23% of students responded that they come from high-income households, meaning that sustainability wasn't the only option, but a choice.
The barriers, then, become education.
41% of people responded that they were simply not taught the value of shopping sustainably for clothing. 15% of people didn't even value it as more than a five out of ten when considering what to buy.
The burden, now, is on students, especially those who can actively make the choice of shopping sustainably.
The ability to thrift clothing or shop from sustainable retail brands isn’t always an option for everyone. But if it is for you, next time you want a wardrobe refresh, consider shopping sustainability by thrifting or investing in higher quality pieces made to last.