While some students prefer name brands and shopping malls, three students at West prefer to thrift shop for their clothing.
Senior Cody Carmack said that she always prefers clothing from thrift stores over name brands, but also because the entire idea of shopping. “It’s just easier to go to a thrift store and get something for way cheaper,” she said.
Carmack also believes that it gives her a unique style that is all her own. “My style is all for me, not for other people.”
Sophomore Ryli Rosner agrees that thrift shopping has helped to shape her style. “[Thrift shopping] is fun because you can find stuff that nobody else has.”
Junior Emily Baker thinks that thrift shopping gave her the style she has today. “I started thrift shopping to find stuff that people might not normally wear,” she said. Coming from a private school, thrift shopping has helped Baker make a style for herself.
Along with the acquired style that goes along with thrifting, Rosner, Carmack, and Baker all agree that thrifting saves a lot of money. Thrifting has saved Cody a lot of money by not buying name brand clothes.
Baker usually spends her money on things besides clothes, like food, so thrift shopping for her is a great way to not have to spend that much money on clothes.
Baker also likes the environmental aspect of thrifting. “Instead of throwing out old clothes, people are now donating them and giving them to someone new,” she said. By reusing clothes, less clothes are made, and less pollution affects the Earth.
Despite the benefits of thrifting, Baker believes there used to be a stigma associated with thrift shopping. “I think thrift shopping used to be more for convenience and now it is a style, now people might view it as vintage, too,” said Baker.
However, some people have found a negative side to thrift shopping that all the girls have experienced. Carmack said that some of her friends and family believe that wearing some else’s clothing is gross.
Rosner friends also see another problem with thrifting. “The people I know who don’t like thrift shopping are people who are picky about their clothes, and they want name brands,” she said.
