no.

You must exist. You must exist within your means. You’re doing your best to minimize the impact. It’s fine. You’re doing good.

Also, increased demand at thrift stores doesn’t increase the supply of thrift from donations and doesn’t increase the consumption of fast fashion. At most it decreases the amount of things the thrift store throws out. So that’s a win too.

As for appearance? 🤷‍♂️ I stopped caring about stranger’s opinions long ago. Not sure how people survive otherwise. I remember it being stressful and exhausting.

I’m extremely enthusiastic about used stuff.

Folks who buy new products will buy them anyway, and it’ll either end up in a landfill or used by someone else. Mind as well use it.

And, think of the opportunity cost. Your fast fashion presumably replaces “budget” new clothes you’d buy instead, which shrinks sweatshop market demand as a whole.

Also:

• If you’re feeling guilty about skipping “sustainable” brands, a lot of those are cons anyway. Some are fine, but there’s a good chance you’d just make some lying jerk richer.

• For heavens sake, if you like fast fashion, enjoy your passion.

So I’m going to come at this from a different perspective because I’ve put a lot of thought in to this topic in other ways. I’m vegan, meaning I do not buy, consume or use any animal products, which obviously includes leather or fur. However since I am not financially supporting those industries by paying for those products and the perpetuation of animal abuse practices, I consider it moral for me to buy those items 2nd hand.

However I do not, for two big reasons:

1. Ew. It’s literally skin. That’s so gross. I don’t want to touch leather, let alone wear it.
2. The perception of those viewing me, I don’t want to be seen as a person that pays for fur and leather. Wearing an item is tacit endorsement of the item to everyone who views you, strangers included.

So to bring it back around, yes you can thrift fast fashion ethically. So long as you understand that anyone who recognize it as fast fashion, will reasonably think you buy fast fashion and support the industry. Up to you if that’s something you are comfortable with it.

Unlike an expensive phone, where the initial purchase may have been made with the expectation to still get a couple hundred after a few years, I see no connection whatsoever between your buying second hand fast fashion and the first buyer’s purchase decision. They would have bought it regardless of whether it would become trash or second hand.

In short: no.

It depends on what you would have bought otherwise—you presumably buy a limited amount of clothing, so what purchase is it replacing?

It’s also possible that a subsequent shopper who was set on buying Shein but was checking thrift stores first will now buy new items instead—but I can’t say how likely that might be.

Thrift shops that get donated stuff: no

Everything where the person who buys at the bad places gets money: debatable, but still better than letting it get thrown into a landfill

One of the biggest victories of capitalism during my lifetime is how consumerism has swallowed ethics. I’m not saying that buying stuff from shit-heel companies is OK, or that boycotts are useless. But the mentality of shopping as ethics reduces moral agency to consumer choice and spending habits. Its gross.

Has anyone else noticed this? We don’t shop anymore, we support businesses now. Maybe the reason Americans are reluctant to protest is because we already feel like an activist for spending an extra dollar on cage free eggs.

It depends if you’re popular or not. People might copy your style and purchase the fast fashion directly because of you, even if you got it second hand. Say for example you’re Taylor Swift, and you literally steal the fast fashion cloths directly from the factory to wear in public. You are still indirectly financially enabling child labor and probably boosting the business.

No, secondhand is perfectly fine

Buying second hand could encourage people buying first hand. Anyway, Shein is shit quality and I don’t know why you would buy that.