Secondhand September: An Introduction

Last week, I announced that my friend Kari will be writing a new feature for The Twenty Ninth: Secondhand September! She's going to be posting every Wednesday, except for this week... We wanted to give you an overview of what this experiment/project is all about, so her first official post will be up tomorrow. In the meantime, here are Kari's thoughts and the background of Secondhand September:

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I’m going to conduct an experiment: I’m not going to spend any money on retail clothing or accessories during the month of September. I’m going to shop exclusively second-hand for the month.

Why do this? For a couple of reasons:

First, I always leave thrift stores with a "glowy" feeling. I feel I’ve saved my family money, contributed to an industry that provides jobs to the underprivileged, kept trash out of landfills and reduced my own consumerism. I feel I multiply my money’s power for benevolence when I shop second-hand.

There's also a creative element in this experiment. Retail is full of messages. The fashion industry survives on convincing us that we should be dressing a certain way -- we need to be “on-trend,” on their trends, otherwise... otherwise what? We’re individuals? Unique? Dressing at the behest of our own creative voice instead of the industry’s advertising? That doesn’t sound so bad...

During this September, I won't have any lookbooks influencing my styling choices -- it will be purely my own creativity. I’ll have to ask myself if I really love something enough to confidently wear it despite being different from everyone around me before buying it, instead of having the comfort of conformity. Some pieces may require at-home tailoring and modification before they’re ready to wear. That takes vision, something that isn’t often required when you’re surrounded by dressed mannequins subtly acting as personal stylists and racks of clothing in a range of sizes.

So here I go: One month of shopping exclusively at Goodwill stores in my area. I'm looking forward to sharing what I find and what I learn!

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If you have questions for Kari, leave a comment!