Do you ever wonder what happens to your clothes after you donate them to goodwill? For clothes rejected by local charities (or when charities are simply overwhelmed with the volume of donations) there is a thriving ecosystem of rag houses and vintage resellers that go to work. Picking through and sorting our old clothes, to find the diamonds that fuel a multi-million dollar vintage clothes industry.
And vintage fashion is having a moment. The RealReal, a marketplace for vintage fashion, reported a 44% increase in items for sale over the past year and credited much of this surge to interest from Gen Z buyers. It has got to the point where demand for vintage items has outstripped supply, which has surprised many industry veterans that are now struggling to keep up.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, TikTok has been a huge driver of this trend with thousands of TikTokers building followings unveiling thrift hauls or even visiting these rag houses and sorting through clothes.
This article takes a look at the vintage fashion industry and how a new generation of buyers and sellers are changing it.
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