Vintage caps on display at Lively Society, located at 2876 34th St. Photo by Reece Nations.
By Samantha Stuhr
Thrifting vintage clothes has become an increasingly popular trend with local shoppers in recent years.
The reasons for this development may vary, but those involved heavily in Lubbock’s thrifting scene say it makes dollars and sense.
“Everyone is trying to be something new, everyone’s trying to be something crazy,” Mike Smith, owner of an online thrift store called Deadbeat Vintage, said, “and for some odd reason, it’s thrifting right now.”
In September 2023, Smith decided to hop on the vintage reselling train. He looks out for graphic T-shirts, hats, and golf gear to resell in his shop.
He jokingly explained that the inspiration for the name “Deadbeat Vintage” came from wearing a lot of his dad’s old clothes, causing him to resemble someone’s “deadbeat dad.”
Sealed shoes behind the counter at Lively Society, located at 2876 34th St. Photo by Reece Nations.
Thrifting and wearing used clothing hasn’t always been the cool or trendy thing to do. But now, the trend is picking up steam and more resellers are coming into the picture.
“It is very trendy,” Smith, a class of 2023 Texas Tech almunus from Euless, said. “Most people want to get something that’s old because it looks cooler if it’s old, despite it being the exact same thing as a newer version.”
Lubbock native Adrian Ballejo, owner the online thrift store LBK Vintage, said he’s seen the thrifting scene evolve before his eyes. Though he’s run his business through listings on Instagram for about four years now, he’s bought and sold second-hand clothing even longer.
“There’s more resellers now,” Ballejo said. “It’s gotten harder too, because on Goodwill’s side, they’ve hired people to look stuff up online and figure out what sells. They have their own store, they have their own website, they’re reselling their own stuff.”
The t-shirt rack at Lively Society, located at 2876 34th St. Photo by Reece Nations.
He said when he saw an opportunity to start a business out of thrifting, he jumped at the chance. While satisfying a demand for cheap fashion was one thing, Smith said buying and selling the clothes second-hand is good from an ecological standpoint too.
“I’ve always kind of looked for a way to have financial freedom on my own terms, and it just seemed like a cool way to go about that,” he said. “The sustainability of it, I think it’s for a good cause. That was a big thing I’ve always struggled with – feeling like I was contributing – and that was a way that I could do that and have a lot of fun doing it.”
Social media has most definitely played a part in the rise of thrifting in recent years. Smith and Ballejo are far from the only thrifters with entrepreneurial ambitions as social media influencers have begun cashing in on the trend, according to NPR.
Emphasis on the sustainability of thrifting, however, is a newer aspect of the scene. Mounting ethical and environmental concerns with fast fashion are driving more customers away from large retail chains.
“It made me so mad when… the website of the year was Shein with over two billion purchases,” said Alex Burke, a senior in creative media industries major from Austin and owner of an online second-hand retailer called Keep Texas Thrifting. “It’s so trendy for one second. The cargo skirts– I saw that for maybe, like two months.”
Vintage tees at Lively Society, located at 2876 34th St. Photo by Reece Nations.
On the subject of Shein and fast fashion, Burke said she “used to totally be all for it” before discovering that “older clothes are so much cooler.”
With a jaw-droppingly low price point of around $3 to $5 per item, it’s easy to see how Shein can be a tempting option for consumers. Its range of size-inclusive stock is the cherry on top for a lot of buyers.
But some Shein products tend to suffer from quality control issues, leading to rips and tears after just a few wears. If the clothes don’t end up back on the racks of thrift stores, they’re likely to end up in landfills or in the ocean.
This industry has been shown to have substantial effects on worldwide ecology. In recent years, a bevy of academic literature has been published on the issue, supporting the assertion that the mass-produced clothing industry significantly contributes to environmental pollution.
As people are becoming more aware of this issue, they look for sustainable alternatives. To meet this demand, major brands such as PacSun, Urban Outfitters and others have started rolling out clothing lines aimed at sustainability, though what exactly makes their clothes sustainable is up for debate.
“I think most people are trying to get into this whole recycling of clothes because people just buy and toss and buy and toss– which I don’t blame them, no one wants to wear the same thing all the time… so, usually, it’s better to buy recycled,” Smith said. “I think it’ll be sustainable, I think it’ll be a popular thing.”
Shoppers peruse the stock at Lively Society, located at 2876 34th St. Photo by Reece Nations.
This recycling mindset is the forefront of entrepreneur and designer Nate Mojica’s clothing company, Life’s Legend. Part of his business’s sustainability efforts include a jean recycle program where customers could donate used denim. Sill, the company is producing new material as well to keep up with the demands of fashion-conscious locals.
“The thing is, if you really look in all the stores– it’s like copy and paste,” Mojica, a senior pre-veterinary science major from Lubbock, said.
Mojica specializes in making hoodies with unique patchwork and layered designs from reused fabrics and thrifted materials. You’ll never catch him shopping at JOANN Fabrics and Crafts, he said.
“Just being able to keep clothes from going to landfills, I can get this material that’s still good and change it into something that I think is cooler,” he said.
He makes a thermal map styled sweatshirt with rainbow colors – his trademark style. He said his style of clothing design takes inspiration from Native American culture– like books, artists, and other clothes.
“If I’m going to have any fast fashion in my closet, I try to get it second-hand,” Arabella Belgara, owner of the online thrift store Authentically Arabella, said. “I think it’s important that pieces continue to find new homes. I feel like it’s my environmentalist role– giving a piece a new life.”
A rack of second-hand clothing at Goodwill Pound Store located at 714 34th St. Photo by Reece Nations.
The bags she hands customers their purchase in are reusable totes she gets from the Goodwill Pound Store, located at 714 34th St. and her price tags are made from old cards her dad had lying around. A firm believer in both thrifting and sustainability, she said she tries to find value in used items knowing they could end up in the landfills.
A lot of people give resellers a hard time for up-charging a piece they found at a thrift store, but they don’t see the work and passion that gets poured into curating and preserving the items.
“I feel like people forget the fact that there’s some labor that goes into this,” Belgara, a Tech alumna from Lubbock, said, “It’s not like hard labor, don’t get me wrong, [but] there’s a lot of stuff that goes into it like getting the research, getting the measurements, making sure it’s clean.”
Belgara has to rent a U-Haul for a booth at the monthly First Friday Art Trail since it can’t all fit in her car. She said even second-hand sellers have to account for customer preferences.
“There are still people that will kind of scoff when they see a shirt with a bunch of holes in it, or something with a stain on it,” Belgara said. “They don’t want to pay [for those items], but I think it’s becoming more widespread.”
Each piece one finds while thrifting has a past life – something that a new article of clothing does not. Imagining the journey an article of clothing took to get to where it is now adds to the fun of the experience.
“It’s someone’s own vision on it, everyone’s going to look at something different,” Smith said. “I could wear a shirt that I find is cool because I know the story of it, but someone might look at it and they don’t even think it looks cool to begin with, so the story doesn’t matter to them at all. It really is in the eyes of the beholder.”
Thrifters search for finds at Lively Society, located at 2876 34th St. Photo by Reece Nations.
In fact, sometimes a piece’s desirability grows when it has a known origin.
“I love knowing the story behind a piece,” Belgara said. “If I can gather more information, I want to know more about it. I love that part of selling. People want to know a lot of the time where it came from, [and] where you got it.”
When one wears a newly thrifted piece of clothing, in a sense, it is living a second life. As more and more clothing gets used and becomes unwanted, the cycle of thrifting and second-hand sale starts over again.
Just as one’s trash is someone else’s treasure, one’s trend is another’s timeless tradition. Eventually, even the cultural mainstays of today will find a new meaning to future shoppers of second-hand fashion.
“In twenty years, a Harry Styles T-shirt is going to be considered vintage,” Belgara said. “That’s what the rule of thumb is. [Thrifting] will always be around, it’s just whether people are going to be into something from twenty years ago.”
About Reece Nations
