Two Student Sellers Talk Second-Hand Fashion

Originally from opposite ends of the country, two current Northwestern students proved that age does not have to be a limiting factor for starting a business. Not many people know how much effort goes into the second-hand clothing market, or how wide of a spectrum it really covers. I spoke with Alex Kalman, a junior at Northwestern from Haverford, PA and current first-year student at Northwestern Nia Harris from LA about how they got involved in fashion resale in high school, and where they are with their business today.

Kalman was 16-years-old when he first started re-selling shoes. It began with him complimenting a student in high school: “A kid transferred into my school and was wearing some Jordans and I was like those are pretty sick. He was like, ‘yeah and I basically got them for nothing, and they are pretty much going to sell themselves because I am going to sell them for more than what I paid for… yeah I flip shoes, that’s what I do.’”

Kalman was hooked. The two of them sold through a Facebook group called NDSP market place which had about 30,000 people in it, as well as Ebay. They would make $20 on a quick shoe deal. He says, “It was a way to make a quick buck.”

In Harris’s household, clothing played a role in their everyday lives. Since she was seven, her parents have run a clothing store, and she loved all of the clothes. In high school, with her mom getting constant shipments, Harris’s closet was growing on a weekly basis. “Because of that, I am kind of spoiled in the regard that I’m not used to keeping clothes for a very long time. So my closet got kind of jam packed and my mom was like, ‘you’ve got to get rid of stuff.’ So I thought why not sell it?” says Harris. Senior year she began an Instagram page and started selling her clothes online or casually from her closet.

For two years of high school, Kalman was really building up his business. Him and a couple of guys had a group called Kick Central. They were probably most known for Yeezys. Kick Central was active on Twitter and Instagram and had a Flickr account for which they hired a photographer. “We were really in the thick of the shoe selling business.” They wound up getting involved in a time and mind-consuming business that got him really into fashion. Their business grew to be worth a few 100K with around 500 transactions amongst the three of them.

At this point, around senior year, he asked his dad for a loan to see what they could do with it. They were expanding rapidly, and truly building a name for themselves. “I have shipped shoes to China, Mexico, Europe. And I’ve bought shoes from all of those places too. We kind of segmented the market. We knew what shoe and what sizes were selling well in Asia, and what shoes and sizes were selling well here, in Evanston.” Kalman could look at a shoe and know what it was worth and what he was paying for them. They were able to start investing in higher end items.

Harris’s Instagram quickly gained traction. Most of her exchanges were done on a local scale, selling to her friends, acquaintances and the daughters of her mom’s friends. A lot of her friends knew  she was into fashion and were really excited about her selling her clothing. She also sold on a website called Shopify, a website that hosts anything ranging from startups or casual sellers to big time names like Kylie Jenner’s makeup line which is under a premium category.  Senior year, she had a lot of fun with it, but decided to leave it temporarily once college picked up. However in the wake of it, she was very flexible with transactions. All of her exchanges were conversational and personal. In regards to her Instagram she claims, “Yes, it still in the making, but definitely thinking of bringing it back again.”

In the heat of Kick Start’s buzz, they were thrown some curveballs. A few of these including one of his co-workers being robbed in front of a bank, or straight up being scammed-- being sent a bag of potatoes. “I always vet my shoes. If I notice stitching off, no receipt, wrong laces, or bottom of the shoe has wrong design, or the tongue, size or sole will be wrong, I won’t buy them. Then I vet the seller. If they don’t have any feedback or I have never seen them before, I am going to be pretty skeptical, says Kalman when discussing what he learned from the companies failure. A big trend called legit-checking, which checked Kick Start as well, keeps a record of the seller’s transactions how trustworthy the seller is. Kalman always reached out to his buyers to make sure that everything came as expected, and their name became extremely verified. Eventually, the group parted ways, leaving for college in different parts of the country.

As Harris left her Instagram temporarily, she continued to sell in other areas. Right now she is selling jewelry, including striking lightning earrings  She eventually wants to start her own brand, and although college and varsity soccer are taking up most of her time right now, she continues to keep her clothing sale going, though today on a more lax level.

In college Kalman no longer has his sneaker business running. When in high school, no one was really doing it at the scale they were working with. Today, he knows that at least five students from his previous high school alone have way larger operations running. When they first left for college, they would continue to let shoe-flippers do some transactions through their channels, for a price. Now, a lot of these young flippers on the market are doing work by coding bots. Alex does not see this kind of exchange as something he will take part in.

This being said, he continues to buy and sell on a personal level. He owns a completely rotational closet, never keeping anything for more than a year or two. Most of the shopping and selling he does is through a website called Grailed. In regards to second hand exchanges, he says that “the platform has changed. Facebook is basically dead.” Grailed has pretty much taken over. Fashion is a big part of his life, and grailed is a way for him to stay strategically updated: “The reason I do it is I care about how I dress. I put time and energy in wanting things to fit a certain way.” His eyes are always on the market, and he doesn’t mind waiting if he’s strapped for cash. At the moment, his favorite item is a pair of Raf Simons Stan Smiths; He even sported them during our interview. They are not flashy, but he doesn’t mind people not knowing. It is fun to be wearing something a step up from regular adidas.

Harris’s closet today is a collab of inspirations she gets from the media mixed with some hand me downs from her stylish mom and clothing that she has reworked on her own. In terms of her style, she says that she will “kind of go off of celebrities and what I see.” She notices that she kind of catches things before they trend. She is always innovating, and style is very important to her. Some prominent faces on her radar include “Bella Hadid and Kardashians and a bunch of random Instagram people.” She admires these bold icons and also admires them amongst people that like to make it a point to stand out and embrace difference. She recreates a lot of clothing to make them her own, for instance an old tie dye sorority shirt she transformed into a tube top that she paired with overalls. “A store I got inspiration from is called LF. I saw a bunch of repurposed college shirts… and I want to do that.”

Both of these students are fashion figures on the come up that prove that certain looks can be timeless and gain value over time, but also that everything you own should be worth something from when you buy it and when you quit wearing it.