Is it possible to keep up with microtrends sustainably?

Have you shopped on Vinted recently? Or Depop? If you have, you may have noticed how much better the variety has become over the last few years. Looking for the newest trending jacket? Someone is already reselling it! Polka dots? They're everywhere! So, if those trending items are now available to us second-hand, can we participate in the trends without worrying about environmental and ethical implications?

Of course, shopping second-hand will always be more sustainable than buying an item brand new. Besides having a smaller CO2 footprint, second-hand clothing also avoids giving money to large companies and supporting the fast fashion industry directly.

But even if a piece is second-hand, it's most likely still produced by the fast fashion industry. Microtrends have such a short life cycle that their products aren't meant to last; they are expected to die so fast that it's not even worth producing the items in a higher quality. So even if it's not us buying the piece directly, someone must. While platforms like Vinted or Depop make it easy to buy second-hand clothing, they also encourage mindless spending. For us as consumers and for the people selling, always having the option of reselling in the back of one's mind can justify buying clothes we otherwise wouldn’t have. Additionally, low prices on second-hand platforms might encourage us to purchase more than usual.  

So, for us to ‘sustainably’ participate in a microtrend, someone else must spend money at a fast fashion company to buy a trending item, and then dispose of it quickly enough for us to buy while it's still all over our feeds. This principle intensifies the speed of microtrends because it encourages people to get rid of recently purchased clothing items to make money from them before the trend is over.

Still, participating in microtrends or even buying fast fashion is not inherently evil. We should just not let cheap second-hand clothing encourage us to consume mindlessly. If a microtrend really speaks to us, we feel like it aligns with our personal style and maybe even enhances it in the long term, it's okay to participate and purchase it, in the best case, second-hand! Because at the end of the day, we are not responsible for other people's shopping habits, just our own.

So carefully pick and choose the microtrends that you want to participate in and try to consume mindfully, even when an item is not purchased brand new.