Thanks to China Fashion and Urban Lifestyle specialist Elsbeth van Paridon for covering Pawnstar at Temper Magazine in this article. Temper tends to cover on-the-moment topics with a fashion slant including LGBT and androgyny, New York City’s Chop Suey Club, beauty and body image, and everything else having to do with China’s new youth.
Here is one of her observation from the article on Pawnstar:
“The Chinese millennial is changing their shopping patterns, marking a strong taste for the new, yet a bleak attention-span for that same newly acquired view. In other words, these consumers are perpetually getting rid of their been-there-done-that boring booty and on the lookout for some fresh (fashion) tasty. “
This seems similar to points made in another recent piece by Fast Company attributing the rapid growth of secondhand in the United States to a millennial culture obsessed with newness and fresh instagram posts. The article quotes recent research by Thredup that includes the following numbers:
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it’s a $24 billion market, projected to double to $51 billion by 2024.
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56 million women bought secondhand products in 2018, an increase of 12 million new secondhand shoppers from the year prior.
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51% of resale shoppers plan to spend even more on thrift in the next five years.
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The resale market grew 21 times faster than apparel retail over the past three years.
- The secondhand clothing industry is expected to grow 1.5 times the size of fast fashion within 10 years.
Of course all of this growth is from a lower base and the relatively contemporary fashions being bought and traded have to come from somewhere. It’s not as if consumption of new fashions is expected to go down any time so. One does have to wonder how eco-friendly any of this is, though Thredup and others are trying to address this question by such initiatives as this partnership with Reformation.
Btw That’s Shanghai has also updated its entry on Pawnstar.
