Welcome back to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live! I am lucky to have joined a terrific group of bloggers who give a peek into the places and spaces where they spend their time.
Today's topic for the rest of the group is 5th anniversary favorite Where Bloggers Live post...but because I haven't been with the group for five years, and because I totally missed last month's post on sustainability for Various Annoying Reasons, you are getting my catch up September post.
I decided that for the sustainability topic, I wanted to talk a bit about the thrifted items in my wardrobe. And I got curious what my wardrobe would be like if it only included my second-hand pieces. Here's my thrifted wardrobe by the numbers. Other than the fact that I have a big scarf addiction problem collection, the thing that jumps out to me is how few thrifted tops and pullover sweaters I have right now.
The relative scarcity of secondhand tops in my closet is not because there are so few available, but this is an area where in recent years I've noticed myself buying more of them new rather than thrifted. There are several reasons for that:
In the last few years, I have been shopping secondhand exclusively online, which is more expensive than thrifting in person. The price of a secondhand T-shirt on a site like ThredUp is generally the same (or more!) as a T-shirt from the same brand on sale at retail for basic brands like Target, Kohls, JCP, etc. While I definitely support thrifting as a way to help the environment, it's hard to bring myself to spend more money on a used shirt that I can't return for free than a new shirt from the same brand. So I've been holding out for killer sales on retail sites to refresh my tops and sweaters.
I find that tops take the hardest wear of all clothing categories, being the most likely to shrink, fade, stretch out, stain, develop holes/snags, etc. This is an area that needs more recent replacement, and I'm somewhat picky about fit in this area, so I have fewer older tops in my wardrobe compared to other categories. And most of my newer tops are new retail purchases as discussed above.
I just haven't had as much luck finding my desired colors, cute prints, and desired silhouettes/materials in tops on secondhand sites as I have on retail sites. Once you have a good foundation of basic tops in solid colors, you tend to look for more interesting pieces, and I've been finding those interesting pieces new rather than secondhand in the last few years. This is very different from the skirt situation, as my 31 thrifted skirts will attest. For example, once I figured out my size in Lularoe skirts, it became very easy to search for them on ThredUp and stock up on skirts with fun prints.
And regarding secondhand clothing shopping in general, the larger you are, the harder it is to thrift clothing. I think the situation is slowly improving but the thrifting landscape for me as a 2X/3X is nothing like it was when I was a size medium.
Next I looked at the thrifted items in my wardrobe that have the best combination on two metrics: total wears and cost per wear (the price of the item divided by the number of wears). These seven pieces are my thrifted wardrobe's Most Valuable Players. Unsurprisingly, jeans are high on the list because I tend to wear the same pairs of jeans over and over again. Both black toppers are versatile basics that I've had for years. The two necklaces are easy-to-style neutral/metallic pieces that were bought incredibly cheaply from ThredUp. The purple flats were an unexpected MVP but shoes do get a lot of wear and I like to wear a pop of color flat shoe.
Here are some OOTD (outfits of the day, aka real-life outfits that I wore) featuring these MVPs from various points in time. (Where possible in this post, I am including OOTD that I haven't previously shared on the blog.)
Focusing purely on the total number of wears metric, here are five more pieces that are champs in my thrifted wardrobe with over 25 wears. 3 versatile neutral clothing pieces and 2 pairs of shoes, totally makes sense. It's interesting...I do not have a total wears goal for thrifted items that is different (lower) than for my wardrobe overall at 30 wears, but it sort of seems like the target for thrifted pieces should be lower since most of them probably have already been worn before I bought them. This source says people wear clothes about 7-10 times on average before getting rid of them, so maybe my target should be something like 20-23 wears for thrifted pieces. Thoughts?
And more OOTD featuring the three clothing pieces.
My cost per wear goal doesn't differ between new and secondhand items; I target below $1 CPW as my first goal and below $0.65 CPW as my second goal. The weirdly high price of tops on ThredUp and the like aside, in general, it is cheaper to thrift something than buy it new. If you are in a position to go to thrift stores like Goodwill that have lower prices than online sites, you can get especially good deals. As for scarves, even ThredUp sells them quite inexpensively compared to retail...and you generally don't need to worry much about whether it will fit you or if it's in a silhouette that is out of style. And if you have a large wardrobe in which you aren't wearing the same pieces week after week, the easiest way to get your CPW down is by having a low purchase price. Buying secondhand means you can often get better quality for less money so you aren't limiting yourself to "cheap" clothes.
And here are OOTD with the two clothing items.
To round out this analysis, here are all the thrifted items that I have worn 20 or more times (which is about where a separate goal for secondhand clothes might fall). The most surprising item is the silk fish scarf, but because it had a relatively high purchase price, I have prioritized wearing it; you can see that it's CPW is still above $1 but I'm working on it.
My thrifted items tend to have pretty low CPW. The average current CPW of the 278 secondhand items in my wardrobe is only $0.77! But these items have what I consider VERY LOW CPW at $0.25 or less. It's the CPW metric rather than the total wears metric where my thrifted wardrobe really shines.
Of course, 20 or 30 wears and CPW of $0.25 is nothing to my husband. He targets hundreds of wears and CPW of pennies, and I think he manages that without wearing falling apart clothes (although his jeans do get quite faded and a bit bedraggled before they leave his wardrobe). He basically has a capsule wardrobe in his favorite neutral colors and sticks to a couple favorite outfit formulas. He literally rotates through the shirts in his closet, both his in-office shirts and his other shirts, so he spreads out his wears pretty well. I keep thinking I need to do a "Lessons From My Husband's Closet" post. Lesson #1: Don't buy something you aren't certain you'll want to wear a lot of times!
Thanks for joining me in a look inside my thrifted wardrobe.
Next month's topic is My Sleep Routine...and it's a really simple one!
In the meantime, visit these lovely bloggers as they share their favorite posts to celebrate the 5th anniversary of Where Bloggers Live:
Bettye at Fashion Schlub
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Doghair
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After
Are you a thrifter/secondhand shopper? Do you thrift clothing and/or accessories? Do you have certain things you love to thrift? Are there things that you prefer to purchase new...or simply find that it works better for you to buy new? Do you have any ideas about what your wardrobe MVPs are?
Blogs I link up with are listed here.
I enjoy posts with stats about cost per wear. I only have about 15 preloved items, although they've all been acquired in the last 12 months and I wear them a lot. I mostly buy dresses and skirts. I don't buy tops for the reasons you gave. Thanks for linking at Is This Mutton
Oh, the math!! Wow. I would have no idea how to begin with a project like this but find it very interesting. Do you have some kind of spread sheet or Quicken document or something where you keep track? How do you remember to document that you wore something? I would do okay for a day or two and then would forget to tally wears and throw the whole effort off kilter. I was surprised that one of the categories for which you have the most thrifted goodies is accessories. Your handmade beads are so beautiful that I can't imagine you ever finding anything to buy as special and perfect. But then you mentioned scarves. Ah-ha!! Forgot about sca…
Sally! This is so impressive on every level.
Your commitment to thrifting in general is quite admirable… Your inventory system and tracking how much use you get from the items…wow! I know if I showed my husband your post, he would ask if I could please try to let your habits rub off on me.
I would be grateful to have your ability to put an outfit together, because dang, you really do know how to work your clothes. Your style and choices are extremely flattering! One of the biggest challenges I have is knowing what works best on my shape and you absolutely have that nailed.
Sincerely, you look fabulous!
(Also, that scarf collection. 🤯 haha)
Another counter! I just left Daenel's post where she counted how many Where Bloggers Live posts she has published (177!!!) and now you're counting clothing. I think you'd be shocked if I counted my clothes. Ha ha. #OUTFITREPEATEREXTREME Off the top of my head I'll guess have 50 items total? That's everything - clothes, shoes, coats, etc. And I go to school every day.
I was keeping track of all my clothing wears in the beginning of 2020...so I had a good three months worth of records, and then bam, covid, and I was wearing the same thing for "work from home" every day, which really skewed the results...and I just could never quite get on the bandwagon again. The…
What a great post. I appreciate how you broke things down by CPW. I do that too, but only when I want to buy something a little extravagant and I need to make sure that I’m going to actually wear it. You know justifying the buy to myself.
Honestly, I haven’t thrifted since we moved to Louisiana. I used to go every payday. It was such a fun little treat.