Throughout my career as a model, I was privileged to be dressed by top designers as well as new brands. My closet grew to a giant size, and I still had nothing to wear. However, I never had time to clean it up. When the world started bringing attention to how much the fashion industry, by producing more clothes, damages the environment, it deeply resonated with me. A few years back, I stopped shopping completely. For events and red carpets, I work with stylists, and in casual life, I like to be comfortable. Most of the luxury brands I used to spend money on ended up being worn once and never again.
For the past few years, I have been working on a project to build my own brand. However, by selling my apartment, I was forced to clean up my closet, which I decided to give to resale platforms to not have the money that I worked hard for be wasted. Just like that, instead of creating a new brand and producing more clothes, even if you use sustainable materials, it still causes pollution for the environment. I decided to build my website and start selling my wardrobe, which quickly turned into a real business. Now, I sell not only my wardrobe but also my friends' clothes, all the beauty treatment services I use, furniture, have already brands, and more, reaching out to be sold on my platform.
It's a whole new world for me to be on the other side of the fashion industry. I have a lot of very rare, unique pieces from top luxury brands, and by researching the market to understand the price to put for the items I sell so my customers don't overpay, I learned a lot of interesting facts about the industry.
I have a no-return policy and zero plastic in packaging. The reason is that return policies are the biggest polluters in our industry. Up to 9.5 billion pounds of returned items are landfilled every year. It imparts a significant loss of revenue to fashion brands and leaves a damaging environmental footprint. The point is, the more we consume, the more fashion produces!
Because most brands, in order to grow margin and make you pay exactly the same price, reduce costs by making cheaper, low-quality products! So the price we paid a few years ago for quality, today we pay for the name only. If you understand and appreciate the quality of fabrics, resale platforms are the places for you to shop. If you have a few very high-quality items in your wardrobe, you don't have to ever worry about the new, next season fashion collection, as these good quality items will serve you for decades, and I guarantee you, it's nearly impossible to find these in stores nowadays. And if resale seems to be expensive, most importantly, pay attention to fabrics and quality.
I want to be thorough and not ignorant of the problems we humans have created and are facing. I'm very aware that this will be a long ride, but at least I'm doing my part as a citizen of the world, to the best of my ability, to not bring more damage to our Mother Earth. And I hope you do the same.
Shop more on resale platforms & be proud of yourself for putting a little impact into making a big difference.
1 comment
Dear Alina：
I am a journalist captured your photos at an event in Times Square last week. I would like to establish contact with you to share these photos. How would you prefer to receive them?
Looking forward to your reply.
Thank you,
Леон Ч.