Green and Fashionable: Taking Advantage of Your Local Thrift Stores

With today's increasingly "green aware" industries, consumers are demanding products produced in eco friendly facilities. Companies boast of using "all recycled" materials, energy saving light fixtures, and other green conscious procedures in their work facilities. However, there is at least one industry that is combining truly "reusing and recycling" to please its consumers; the fashion industry is currently experiencing the perfect blend of "green" and "vintage," so that fashion conscious and eco-conscious are beginning to mean the same thing for this industry.

The popularity of so-called vintage clothing is clearly seen through the success of online retailers such as ModCloth, as well as through retail stores such as Anthropologie. While some fashion conscious shoppers are embracing the vintage styled items sold through similar stores, many more have realized that the prices placed on such items are far out of reach of their practical pocketbooks. Because of this, they have turned to the truly green practice of thrift store shopping-all for legitimately "vintage" items. By doing so, they ensure that old clothing does not end up simply in landfills, polluting the earth. Instead, their choice to re-purchase old dresses, shirts, slacks, and purses keeps these items still in the "reuse" part of the cycle-and it keeps their wearers fashionable (at least for the current fashion trends). Perhaps in some regions of the country, shopping for someone else's used items would be looked down upon, but in places like Portland, Oregon, the practice is actually bragged about. Local fashion blogs that focus on "street fashion" (photos of the fashion sense of locals on different streets in the region) often showcase many outfits where the wearer lists "thrifted" as the source of her dress or purse.

Being eco-friendly in your shopping should not be frowned upon; rather, it should be praised as it is in more green cities like Portland. If you're interested in investing in a greener fall fashion wardrobe (or back to school wardrobe for you children), try checking out local consignment shops, the Salvation Army stores, or a few Goodwill stores. If you're not into the "vintage" look, these stores will still have plenty of items to suit your taste; in fact, a lot of the clothing at my own Goodwill seems to have barely been worn at all and is almost straight from a more mainstream department store's racks. If you are interested in investing in the "vintage" look, it's generally a good idea to look up vintage fashion ideas that you like online (or in a mainstream retailer store) before you head out thrift shopping. You'll be surprised at how easy to find similar items at much cheaper prices in these thrift stores.

Overall, "going green" can mean so much more than just recycling your soda pop cans. Going green can also apply to how you purchase your clothing and accessories; fortunately for the green conscious spender, going green also happens to easily coincide with being fashionable right now.