Our Clothes Are Travelling More Than We Do.
I source a lot of clothing here at Rebels & Rainbows. It’s crazy how much fabric and textiles are going to end up in landfill if we don’t start repurposing it, reselling it and talking about it. That’s how Rebels & Rainbows started. From a place of mass, chaos and confusion around clothing waste, recycling and reusing.
The Rag House & Vintage Wholesalers
While I predominantly source vintage clothing and accessories on Rebels & Rainbows that spark dopamine, think whacky prints, sequins, Y2K, it’s part of the parcel that I also get mainstream, modern clothing along the way. This can be additions to vintage wholesale bales, mystery bags, rag buying or palette fabric buys. Think lucky dips but on a palette scale.
For instance, I’ve seen an increase in Shein and Primark over the years in all areas of vintage sourcing. It’s due to the volumes these brands produce, the low prices people are paying, and the speed at which people are clearing out their wardrobes and getting rid of their clothes through charity donations, collections, and Kilo drop-off points.
At first, I’d pile the modern stuff high in storage with a mental note of ‘Deal with later’, the basic, day to day pieces that don’t spark dopamine, I earmarked for local shelters. At least they’d do good that way. In terms of the other stuff? For a long time i went back and forth about reselling high street, modern and second-hand clothing online. It didn’t make sense to sell it through the website, it wasn’t cost-effective and equally, it wouldn’t do me any brand-building favours to resell online under the Rebels & Rainbows brand name because it would create confusion as to who we are and what we do and our mission to clothe the world with dopamine-inducing garments that are already in existence. Then I realised storing it wasn’t helping anyone anywhere in the fashion life cycle. So I decided to resell on Vinted at low prices, making fashion affordable and accessible. It’s not what I want to do forever, but I can’t contribute to an already massive problem, especially when reports of clothing poverty in the UK is at an all-time high.
The Double-Edged Sword
It was many moons ago that I wrote my dissertation on sustainability in the fast fashion supply chain, Vinted was a twinkle in someone’s eye, TikTok didn’t exist yet, and upcycling was still seen as a ‘Weird’ East London Indie thing. God, how the years fly. But as the years have passed, production has soared and overconsumption has never been higher. Prices are being driven down at the production end to keep costs low for those buying the clothing in the Western world. The system is still bad. And while I am a one-woman reseller in Coventry, I know the importance of making small changes that can become changes creating bigger impacts as time goes by. The ripple effect.
As garments come across my desk, I’m very aware of how far they’ve travelled to be discarded after a few wears and how, by me reselling for a fraction of their actual worth, I’m not adding value to these pieces. I may, in fact, be reinforcing people’s existing low-value attributions to their clothes. With that in mind, I’m trying to limit the amount of modern pieces I receive and stay as aligned to my mission as possible. I’m also going to start sharing on social media where each piece was made, in the hope of inviting others to think about their clothing, where it came from and the value that our clothing holds.
Just Some Thoughts!
I welcome any discussion or ideas around this - this is not a one-woman problem! Fashion Revolution have some great materials surrounding this topic as does Eco-Age, if you’d like to explore the topic more.
Have a great day!
Rebels & Rainbows Founder