Did Tom Wolfe have it right when he claimed that much that is strange and crazy and wonderful in American culture has a way of starting out on the West Coast and eventually filtering East?

For those of us far more fascinated with the inception and dissemination of fashion trends than the consumption of them, the neighborhoods of San Francisco have always been a buffet of people watching for the street style destined to seed the runways and department stores. And Guy Trebay of the New York Times nails it in his opening line of Fashion Diary: The Tribes of San Francisco:

IF a decade spent following the fashion flock will teach you anything, it’s that fashion people seldom have much to do with generating style. This little-appreciated truth naturally comes to mind as the Fashion Week juggernaut lumbers toward Manhattan, a rolling, continuous loop of live-streamed, Tweeted product-placement set to ambient glamour-buzz cranked out by the Industrial Hype Machine.

…What she likes about San Francisco style, said Ms. Grim, who is in her early 40s, is that the town is remarkably free of fashion hierarchies and in-crowd tyrannies. There is no shoe of the season here. There is no It bag. Except perhaps for the pulp-novel heiresses Vanessa and Victoria Traina (who anyway are almost New Yorkers), there are no Vogue-anointed darlings-du-jour.

Photo: Heidi Schumann for NY Times

One thing notably absent, however, in Trebay’s analysis is the influence of Burning Man culture on the San Francisco fashion scene. Given the thousands of key Burner players whose default world residence is the bay area yet keep their culture alive and well year round, I find it hard to believe that their DIY radical self expression anti-corporate style wouldn’t permeate out onto the streets.

Interestingly enough, even though the quirky, innovative aesthetic is pervasive, my handful of trips to San Francisco hunting for the corresponding retailer sources - especially local designers - have left me standing mostly in resale shops or malls in tourist destinations. Ever so often there will be a brave entrepreneur opening a collective of local designers, a curated vintage store in a high rent district that mixes in refashioned pieces, or a boutique carrying avant-garde designers from NY… but those are the exception, not the rule.

Even locals tend to concede, unasked, that San Francisco has historically been an also-ran in fashion terms. “Every time a designer from here has a little bit of success, they disappear to New York,” said Gladys Perint Palmer, executive director of fashion at the Academy of Art University, whose fashion department has an enrollment of 2,500.

Allow me to digress for a moment… 2500 fashion students? That’s about 1000 graduating a year, and that’s just one school in one city. A private, for-profit school with 5 digit tuition. Are there enough jobs in the industry for all of them? Um, no. Back to San Francisco…

Ms. Perint Palmer was referring specifically to Nice Collective, a San Francisco-based label founded in 1997 by Joe Haller and Ian Hannula in part to capitalize on distinctive elements of a local style that, like so much else in the Bay Area, seems to be generated by some loopy organic collective impulse rather than an editorial cabal.

It’s so good I have to restate it: “generated by some loopy organic collective impulse rather than an editorial cabal.” But really, especially since the ‘youth revolution’ of the 60s, has that editorial cabal really dictated much? I’d argue that the best they can do is distill and co-opt the shapes, colors and styling that settles out of the collective choices of the loopy ones. And where do those loopy young ones go for the raw materials of their sartorial expression, especially when their piled into shared bedrooms in sky high rent apartments? You guessed it - thrift stores. Which has over the past couple of decades seeped into the mainstream to the point of becoming a standard style option, perhaps even one with far more cred for the find than the spoon fed trends of the big stores. Trebay quotes a former department store buyer:

“The stigma attached to used-clothing is gone,” she added. “You can either spend $300 on a top at Neiman Marcus or go to the thrift store and buy a bag of clothes for a tenth as much.”

Exactly. And this leaves one with far more time and disposable income for living, not just posing like a well dressed doll.

…Or you can do both and then mash up the results, as the women of the Mission tribe do.

“Those girls are the local Holly Golightlys,” Mr. Ospital of M.A.C. said of women like Rachel Corrie, a waitress at Tartine, who as she left work last week hopped onto her bike wearing what looked like a gingham onesie, feet shod in gladiator sandals and a velvet equestrian hunt cap passing as safety gear perched atop her head.

Girls like her are all over the Mission. You see them flying down Valencia Street on Vespas, their wildly improvised get-ups composed of, say, rags scavenged from the Bay Area’s fabled thrift shops (Out of the Closet in the Castro, Eco-Thrift in Vallejo, the Goodwill outpost just off the 101 Freeway in San Rafael), Marni skirts, vintage SM leathers culled from an eclectic assortment of goods at Marc Josef’s locally legendary antiques shop, Tradesmen, and wingtip shoes.

…“People will wear vintage with some D.I.Y. thing they made themselves with some piece that they couldn’t resist in a boutique,” Ms. Grim said. “They’re not afraid to mash things up.”

Because it might be that one innovative, interesting piece from the boutique, something that might have been inspired by vintage, might even have been made from vintage, but definitely didn’t happen prior to this decade… that’s the piece that communicates that subtle status that signals to other members of the targeted tribe that you’re doing well enough, and care enough, for bits of investment dressing.

“It’s a very difficult city to read,” Mr. Lopez said, owing largely to the local distaste for ostentation and hype, a suspicion of anything that requires a high-degree of difficulty to pull off and that people spend a lot of their lives in cars.

“San Francisco is definitely about quiet style,” he said. “People care. They have the clothes, but they wear them in private. They bring in the most amazing stuff for consignment and I’m always thinking, ‘Where did you wear this thing?’ ”

Stealth Wealth indeed.

From Neiman Marcus' fall offerings

The Associated Press article featuring Neiman Marcus’ Fashion Director Ken Downing’s predictions for the fall has been widely featured in newspapers around the country. But the declarations of Downing I found most useful were not his recommendations of what to buy this season (feathers, lace, pantsuits, whatever). Of far more interest were the words on what compels her to buy at all, which are especially relevant in a belt tightening economy:

“A customer’s not interested in buying something she already owns,” he said. “She wants something that has absolute newness that she just desires and can’t live without.”

Ah yes, the perfect quote to support my irresistible sells fashion category!

Author Jamie Stengle offers a few more gems that give us further insight into the process of forecasting and influencing the trends we see in the malls at every price point:

Downing, luxury retailer Neiman Marcus’ fashion director, has been digesting designer offerings from New York to London to Paris to Milan to come up with a list of trends sure to get people running to the mall.

“I really create the attitude and the message and the mood of the season that the company will be following,” Downing said.

His fashion forecast is then integrated into everything from the Dallas-based company’s (www.neimanmarcus.com) marketing message to what buyers look for to how mannequins are dressed.

Do not try this at home

I really like Stengle’s use of the term digesting in reference to the trend distillation process. No, all the big name designers do not coordinate their lines around specific trend messages.

To create that trend list, Downing watches for recurring themes at fashion shows around the globe. Then he checks out whether designers are producing enough of those trendy items he’s honed in on to fill store racks.

“We start to talk about do we have the critical mass to make these bold predictions?” he said.

For instance, he said, “If we believe in green, we need to have green everywhere.” (This fall, by the way, green will be everywhere, he says, especially in the military-influenced olive.)

Boots of all heights are also in the fall forecast, he said. And a structured handbag is a must, not to mention pearls, “ropes and ropes” of them. Also, he says, keep an eye out for capes, ponchos and vests.

Olive green military? Excellent. Easy to thrift. And looks good with my new red lipstick kick. Ropes and ropes of pearls? Hello 80s retro Chanel knock off possibly spurned by Patricia Field’s god-awful costuming in Devil Wears Prada? And ponchos? Seriously? C’mon, we were giggling about that in 2003, it’s got to be a least a decade before you can try that again. If you’re going to invest actual money, go for that pantsuit with a killer cut. Frilly lace tops can be found at the Buffy.

Mochila bags featured in NY Times' "Mochila Bags: In the Moment, and Long Gone"

Apparently the latest ‘It Bag’ fought over by ‘It Girls’ isn’t coming from the usual logo ladened corporate conglomerates.

It takes the women of the Wayuu tribe of Colombia and Venezuela up to a month to weave a mochila bag, working eight hours a day, every day. It took no time at all for J. Crew, which featured the strappy satchels in its June catalog, to sell all of them. In fact, they were gone before many customers had even flipped open the issue.

But however wonderful it might seem to be supporting ancient indigenous artisanal craft,  what happens to this new mini industry once the fashionistas abandon these for the next big trend? Karin Nelson writes for the NY Times:

Recently, the mochila has become something of a cult item, toted around town by fashion editors and It girls, and the subject of chatter on style blogs. “It seems to be the iconic tribal bag,” said Anne Slowey, the fashion news director of Elle, who has picked up a few on her travels. “The perfect mix of practical, exotic and chic.”

The PR folks at J. Crew offer the following explanation for the bag’s popularity.

“Craftsmanship is something rare and very valuable,” said Jenna Lyons, J. Crew’s creative director, who was not at all surprised by how quickly the bags went. “There are few things that are still made by hand, much less in a technique that is handed down through generations and is a means of support for a community.” On top of that, she added, “It’s a beautiful bag.”

It’s not entirely untrue, of course, but completely neglects the obvious fact that these amazingly crafted items have been around since long before J. Crew… why now are they all of a sudden so hot? Nelson writes:

Much of the craze can be traced to November when the Vogue editor Lauren Santo Domingo organized the Mochila Project. For it, 40 designers, from Alexander Wang to Oscar de la Renta, were each given a traditional bag and asked to rework it in their own style. The extraordinary results — the Calvin Klein was trimmed in snakeskin; the J. Mendel, in fur — were then auctioned off at a charity event in Miami that left those nowhere near South Florida somewhat envious.

Ah yes, the real truth. Craftsmanship is one thing, but when the fashion cabal creates an elite insider event, carrying around the signifier that marks you as in the know? That’s what the ‘It Girls’ will shell out the big bucks for.

And who knows, given the shift away from corporate symbols and towards the status of individual quality crafts, perhaps some entrepreneur might find a way to enlist the work of of the Wayuu tribe into the next great thing.

Christina Binkley writes for the Wall Street Journal:

Towering brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton may dominate ad pages and storefronts, but small designers are gaining a bigger foothold in fashion.

What Sundance did for indie film—showcasing it for a bigger audience—Web sites like Etsy are doing for the little guys of design.

from Smashingdarling.com

She explains how technology is helping the little guy (gal) rise at the same time the giants slide:

At the same time, consumers are increasingly hungry for independent designs. In part, brand fatigue is to blame. Big fashion labels sell the same products the world over, diminishing their logos’ cachet.

Ah yes, brand fatigue. The corporate conglomerates bought out something with actual heritage and promptly proceeded to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

Their designers work on collections a year or more in advance of the clothes’ appearance in stores and rarely—if ever—meet the people who eventually buy them. Moreover, many consumers lost faith in luxury brands after watching prices soar during the boom, then plummet during the crash in the fall of 2008. The slashed sales prices raised questions about the true value of branded goods.

Ah yes, that pesky 08 crash that caught high end retailers with their designer pants down. Kind of hard to regain that snooty image after that season of bargain bin desperation.

Indie designers offer pieces that not everyone has, allowing consumers to create their own style. I’ve noticed that the clothes and jewelry of mine that garner the most compliments are those that come from indie designers. They’re not the same old trendy looks.

’same old trendy looks?’ Talk about inverting status.

Plus it doesn’t hurt your reputation for shopping savvy to admit that you bought something from a young, up-and-coming designer. These days, the “buy local” movement has whetted shoppers’ appetite for a greater sense of connection with their goods’ creators.

Now, even the huge brands are striving to establish authenticity—sometimes trying a bit too hard. British authorities recently banned Louis Vuitton ads that showed an artisan laboring on a bag, saying the ads suggested, falsely, that its bags are handmade.

And how many more potential LV customers saw the blogosphere light up with that juicy story rather than the bullshit ad they wanted them to see? How many of those customers are instead connecting with the actual artisan of the ’statement jewelry’ they’re investing in?

Trish Ginter, co-founder of SmashingDarling, which sells products from nearly 700 indie designers, identifies the site’s typical shopper as “a very professional woman,” she says. “They’re purchasing things that set them apart.”

Kate Moss at Chanel

In the mass publicity frenzy that Fashion Weeks have become, reports on front row celebrity appearances had become just a typical part of the hype machine. And perhaps that’s the problem. Cathy Horyn dares to pierce the veil and share the real behind the scenes dynamics in the New York Times’ Muscling In on the Front Row:

“It’s such an underworld in a way, the celebrity wrangling,” said Vanessa Bismarck, a New York-based fashion publicist whose firm, BPCM, represents labels like Preen and Azzaro. She was referring to the deals, trades and exclusive contracts — first-class airfare, hotel rooms for friends, per diems, designer boutique shopping sprees — that miraculously clear a path to the front row for a busy actress. This is especially the case in Paris and Milan, where budgets and appetites for celebrities are that much bigger.

“Their managers and agents realize fashion shows are a money-making opportunity,” said Roger Padilha, whose firm MAO Public Relations represents a number of fashion brands. “If you see an A-list star at a show, that’s because she’s making $100,000 on the deal.”

No small wonder runway show costs have entered the stratosphere. Can anyone say ‘overhead?’

Yet this season, because of the economy and a general souring on celebrity, many designers are taking a budget approach to V.I.P.’s, paying only for a guest’s outfit for the show and maybe grooming and car-service expenses. A publicist for several New York designers said his clients had been approached by actresses in Los Angeles willing to grace their front rows — provided travel expenses were covered. The designers said no thanks. “Nobody has the money,” the publicist said.

But these big name designers backed by big name corporate conglomerates could get their hands on said money… if the return on investment were there. Apparently that seems to be waning.

Maybe the blunt mercantile aspects of celebrity — your frock for my recognizable face — have turned off the taste-makers. On Wednesday, Mr. Jacobs’s business partner, Robert Duffy, told Style.com that no celebrities were being invited to the designer’s show on Monday, a reversal of years of packing rappers in with famous artists and actors. Mr. Duffy said that “the celebrity thing” had become a bore.

…Now, like a worn rut in a road, the whole business of celebrity seems so well established as to be old and familiar, and in fashion, hopelessly preoccupied with the new, that makes it worthy of contempt.

Stars, too, find a front-row appearance less of a thrill. They see little reason to put up with the swarming photographers and inane questions from pouncing gossip reporters. Some celebrities strive for loftier images. “Angelina Jolie doesn’t go to the shows,” Ms. Schmeidler observed. “She goes to Haiti.”

Bling is out, social responsibility is way more fashionable?

Which brings us back to Snooki and the “Jersey Shore” bunch.

Inevitably they will be invited to a fashion show, just as surely as Lindsay Lohan, who only a few years ago was a desired “get” for the front row, will be told by someone’s publicist that there is no place for her now. She’s old business.

“one minute you’re in, and the next minute… you’re out.”

Which brings us back to Snooki and the “Jersey Shore” bunch.

“Oh, you know you’re going to see them at something,” Mr. Kors said of the “Jersey” cast. The fashion world scorns anything — camp taste, bad hair — until suddenly it’s in its interest to approve them, and then the idea is genius.

the Ports 1961 seating chart from Vanity Fair article

Ever wondered how design houses decide who sits where at the high profile fashion shows? Vanity Fair takes us behind the scenes to the agencies that handle these complicated logistics:

“As a general rule, the hierarchy of where editors sit specifically within each section comes down to two factors: how supportive that person has been to the brand—meaning just how often he or she includes Ports 1961 in a story—and the publication’s circulation. “The bigger the circulation, the better your seat,” Iacovelli says.

Objective reviews, for sure. *cough*

Kanye West’s girlfriend Amber Rose made fashion news when she sported a slinky hooded dress to the Chanel runway show.

photo from Huffington Post

And immediately I thought of my earlier post admiring the innovative 21st century hijabs for modern Muslim girls.

from Capsters.com

And given that Lindsay Lohan wore a hooded dress on the Golden Globes red carpet, how can a bona fide trend be far behind? Although talk about cultural appropriation, given the rest of the outfit I can’t imagine the Muslim community approves of the fashion twist…

photo from Huffington Post

At the Buffalo Exchange buying counter (image pulled from exploringberkeley.wordpress.com)

I dug up a fantastic article by Reyhan Harmanci for the San Francisco Chronicle, Rag Trade: Cashing in on Vintage, or Just Old, Clothes. The article is written in 2005, but from what I’ve observed personally, here in Austin, the practice of professional pickers selling to BX (Buffalo Exchange) has only grown:

The opportunity to convert used clothing into cash has created a new job: professional seller. Known as “pickers,” professional sellers can be a blessing or a curse to a store, depending on their approach to their line of work and the store’s reliance on their goods. The push and pull at the buy counter between the buyer and seller can be contentious; at its best, it’s a symbiotic relationship, based on a singular love of fashion.

At its worst, it’s a parasitic situation, in which the picker leeches off the store, preying on inexperienced buyers or dealing in stolen merchandise. Buyers, too, can sour the deal by rejecting good clothing to spite the seller or copping an attitude that, as Mascola says, “makes you feel like you’re going to see your social worker.”

Again with the judgement/shame issue I’m mentioned in other BX posts. But where do these professional sellers find enough clothes worthy to pass the knowing eyes of the buyers… and still turn a profit?

Through a friend, he heard that the place to go to was As Is, a nickname for the giant Goodwill on Van Ness and Market streets that wheels out bins of newly donated clothing every morning. “I started to get clued in, looking around at what was current, started reading fashion magazines for inspiration.

“Now I treat it like an art form,” he says, without a smile. Although Mascola has sold clothing at least once a week for six years, it’s never been a full-time job. “The profit margin is too thin; it would be too hard,” he says. “It’s more like a hobby.” He does allow that selling clothes beefs up his income from his retail job in the Castro.

from textile_fetish photostream on flickr

The Austin version of the ‘As Is’ in San Francisco? The Blue Hangar. There, I’ve said it. The secret is out in the open, and surely I’ve made an enemy or two. And the only reason I’m revealing this juicy little secret (that’s sort of out and about with the insiders, anyways) is because my day job prevents me from regular digs and pays me enough to just go buy the stuff for a higher price all pre-picked and sized at BX anyways.

The Blue Hangar on Springdale is supposedly where the clothes that have been sitting unsold on the racks for over three weeks at the regular Goodwills go to be tossed in piles on giant tables and sold for $1.25 a piece. They clear the tables and replace with fresh stock once, sometimes twice, a day and at that point the still unsold goods are compacted into bales and sold as such, often to third world countries. But a few years ago on one particularly stellar run, I quizzed the employee checking me out about the sources and she told me that often when the Goodwill stores were full and they were getting more donations than the stores could process, they’ll send the overflow straight to the Blue Hanger, unsorted. Ah ha! I knew the things that I found wouldn’t have lasted three weeks in the Goodwill store. So folks, right at the end of the month when everyone is moving and ditching stuff is THE time to hit the Blue Hanger.

I’ve shopped there for years, and during my last unemployment stint I’d go and load up with a combination of items for myself… and items to sell at BX. It’s super tricky, because you really have to know what those buyers want. I was pretty much able to break even and cover my costs of the whole run, but then again I took BX credit not cash. I was still out a wee bit of cash overall, but got to shop at BX basically for the cost of my time. I’d occasionally see BX employees there digging, too, but my costumer friend who’s there all the time has said that recently its intensified. And on a recent BX sell, I got into a conversation with a buyer who told me about a friend who was supporting her live music/drinking habit through selling finds from the Blue Hanger to BX.

Which brings up an accusation I’ve heard many times that BX employees favor their friends, or friends of friends, or ‘cool people’ when buying. (more…)

How did we live before Google? A blog search turned up this fabulous insider post from Indiana Adams of Adored Austin: Indiana worked at Buffalo Exchange (heretofore abbreviated as ‘BX’) as a buyer, so she knows of what she speaks. It’s so good I’m going to block quote most of it:

I’ll admit that selling your clothes to Buffalo Exchange can be a little bit daunting. The worst is when you go in with several trash bags full of clothes and the buyer maybe buys the one thing that you threw in there as a joke and then passes on all your really awesome stuff that you thought for sure they’d offer you a billion dollars for. Then you have to do the walk of shame to your car with your bags still full!

Indiana Adams sports an outfit on her blog, 'Adored Austin'

Kids, you’re not alone in that walk of shame. Remember, this is coming from a buyer.

Believe me, this happens way more often than not, but it’s not because they crazy fashionista behind the counter hates your guts and despises your personal style. If they’re passing on things that you think they should have bought, here’s some reasons why:
1. They may already have a lot of what you’re selling in the store.
2. The store could be really, really full so they’ve been instructed to be incredibly selective until the racks empty up a bit.
3. The items you’re selling may not be in season, yet.

Since I’ve never been afraid to strike up a friendly, non-defensive chat with the buyers du jour, I’ve heard them tell me (and others) much of the same thing. And a little personal observation? Even though it’s not supposed to matter which buyer you get and they do a whole lot of second opinions with each other… it totally matters which buyer you get. The fashion eye is a subjective thing. period.

Before I worked there, it was hard to sell there. For me, my clothes are an extension of who I am. If they didn’t buy my clothes, that means they didn’t like my clothes, and that means that they don’t like the way I dress, and that means they don’t like me, and that means I should just go eat worms and cry in a corner.

Exactly. So well put, Indiana. This is why my friends who’ve felt the sting of the walk of shame can get forever soured. But to their credit, I noticed that a few years ago when I returned to Austin after a few years away at grad school, the buyers were now making a deliberate effort to be nice and kind, even if there was sometimes a bit of strain, kinda like a waitress voice. (I don’t blame them one bit, I’ve been a waitress…)

But after I worked there, I found out that there’s just so much more to it than that. And besides, there’s no reason to be embarrassed if the buyer doesn’t buy your stuff. One time a dude came in with (this is not a joke!) two trash bags full of jock straps and sweat socks. Those are the kind of people who should be embarrassed. I mean, really. What in the world was he doing with so many jock straps? And why in the world did he think I’d be able to resell them at Buffalo Exchange? Um, gross.

Really? Wow. Someone buy those kids and industrial strength mega bottle of Purell, please!

Austin Buffalo Exchange

This will be the first post in a series exploring both the behind the scenes mechanics as well as cultural implications of the buying process at Buffalo Exchange. I’ll also be repeatedly stating, for the record, that if you give me $100 to spend on clothing in one store in Austin, it would be Buffalo Exchange - it’s my favorite place to shop and I always consider it a triumph to trade in as much - or even more - than I spend on merchandise. I have, as such, always harbored a keen fascination for the buying process - both from the perspective of a seller as well as an armchair urban fashion anthropologist.

Today I’m going to highlight some excerpts from a Time Magazine article I dug up from a couple of years ago that articulates the psychology of seller’s anxiety. Anita Hamilton writes in The New Trend of Used Clothes:

Viki Stevenson stands behind the counter, passing fashion judgment.

With the rare exception of those fashionistas who’s entire bag gets bought, anyone who’s ever sold to ‘The Buffy’ knows this feeling. And speak with anyone who’s had their entire bag (or the vast majority of it) rejected and they might just go off on a tirade somewhat similar in tone to telling the story of being rejected at a party by someone you were trying to chat up. People take it personally; I know I have, even though I understand that they have a business imperative to buy what they know will sell. Still, it is a judgement of one’s taste - do you have so many fabulous clothes that the ones you’re tired of still maintain cash value? Or are your cast offs long since out of fashion or even worse, never in style to begin with.

It can provoke all those junior high anxieties of being judged and teased by ‘the cool kids’, even if you supposedly didn’t care what they had to say.

This quickening cycle of fashion lets secondhand stores be pickier than ever. Unlike nonprofits such as Goodwill and the Salvation Army, which accept most donations, the fast-fashion resale shops typically buy only about 5% of the apparel that people bring into the store. It can be a humbling experience for a novice seller, who may find herself leaving the shop with the same bag of castoffs that she walked in with.

Only 5%? I had no idea, I’d love to find out more details on that statistic. Now I don’t feel as bad when they only take about a third of what I bring in.

And it also speaks to the fact that even though recycling is the eco thing to do, most of the clothes hanging on the racks *new* don’t have enough fashion mojo to hold their value and make it through the gatekeepers to have a second life… that someone will pay for. To those who are feeling the sting of rejection, think about this - if Buffalo Exchange took most of what people brought in, it would look a heck of a lot like Goodwill.

The rise of fast fashion, which uses a speeded-up production cycle to rush designer-inspired clothes to moderately priced retailers like Zara and H&M, has breathed new life into secondhand stores like Buffalo Exchange by boosting their supply of barely worn apparel. “H&M is our bread and butter,” says Stevenson, 27, as she flips through a carousel of blouses from H&M, American Apparel, Benetton and the Gap with prices ranging from $7.50 to $14 apiece.

Since more shoppers are loading up on cheap chic every few weeks instead of purchasing a few higher-priced basics once every few months, they’re less sentimental about quickly unloading them to help finance the next round.

But what happens when people stop buying as much fast fashion? I love recycling, don’t get me wrong, but ever since my first thrift forays 2 decades ago I’ve been keenly aware that my opportunities as such - to recycle but still be fashionable - are entirely dependent on others excessive consumerism. As soon as that starts to dip, it’s going to be a lot more competitive - and expensive to find the finds.