Secondhand 101
Comparing resale platforms on fees and returns
Buyer protection is a deadline, not a guarantee. Here is the window each major platform gives you to complain, what it covers, and which side is worth using for which kind of purchase.
Column
Sustainability
Build a wardrobe that costs less and lasts longer.
The practical side of circular fashion: how resale pricing works, how to repair what you own, and how to tell a genuine ethical label from a marketing campaign.
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- 3
- Updated
- 8 Sep
Secondhand 101
How the secondhand market actually works: pricing, sourcing, sizing, and the etiquette of a good deal.
Secondhand 101
Comparing resale platforms on fees and returns
Buyer protection is a deadline, not a guarantee. Here is the window each major platform gives you to complain, what it covers,…
Repair & Care
Mending, cleaning and altering - the skills that double a garment\u2019s life and halve its cost per wear.
Repair & Care
Leather and suede care, and when to resole
Leather is skin: it dries, cracks and loses oils, and heat does more damage than wear. Rotate pairs, dry them at room…
Circular Fashion
Resale economics, textile recycling and how to tell a real circular programme from a marketing one.
Circular Fashion
Spotting greenwashing in a sustainability report
A percentage with no baseline, a target year of 2050 and a graph without units are the three most reliable tells. New…
All Sustainability stories
Repair & Care
Fixing zippers, buttons and hooks at home
Most broken zippers have a worn slider, not a broken zipper, and a slider costs a few dollars where a full replacement…
Circular Fashion
Where the clothes from take-back schemes go
Collection is the easy half. What happens next depends on the partner, the voucher and the grade of the bale, and a…
Secondhand 101
How to shop a thrift store in one visit
A forty-minute route through a thrift store beats two hours of wandering. Take three numbers, sweep the rack by touch rather than…
Circular Fashion
GOTS, GRS, RWS: what each one actually proves
One certifies organic fiber through the whole chain, one counts recycled content, one covers the sheep. None of them certifies a company,…
Repair & Care
Washing wool, cashmere and silk at home
Cool water, around 86°F, a pH-neutral detergent, no wringing and a flat dry. Wool felts when heat, water and movement combine, and…
Secondhand 101
How secondhand prices actually get set
Nothing secondhand is priced from cost, so the same shirt can be $4 on one rack and $40 on the next. Here…
Circular Fashion
What textile recycling can and cannot do
Mechanical recycling shortens the fiber every time it runs, chemical recycling is mostly pilot scale, and sorting is the real bottleneck. What…
Repair & Care
How to remove a stain without ruining the fiber
Two questions decide every stain: what the fiber is, and what the mark is made of. Get either wrong and the treatment…
Circular Fashion
Why brands actually run resale programs
Resale is a marketing channel, a pricing tool and a customer database before it is a climate measure. The programs that survive…
Repair & Care
Moth prevention and how to store knitwear
Clothes moth larvae eat keratin, so wool, cashmere, silk and fur are food while cotton is not. Store knitwear clean, sealed and…
Secondhand 101
Size labels across the decades, decoded
Vintage size labels were drafted for different measurements than today's. How sizing drifted, what the numbers on an old label never meant,…
Repair & Care
Visible mending: what to darn and what to pay for
A pea-sized moth hole in a $180 sweater is a small darning job and worth doing. The same hole in a $40…
Secondhand 101
Negotiating at a market without being a pest
Where an offer is expected, where it is rude, and how to name a number a seller can actually accept. The etiquette…