Allison Christine for Unsplash

Conscientious consumerism and slow and sustainable fashion is in vogue right now. If you’re on the bandwagon blindly or because you actually care that cheap clothes and accessories ultimately spend more time in a landfill than in your wardrobe rotation doesn’t matter. You’re here, and it’s a good trend. (Keep reading. There’s evidence.)

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In East Dallas you can choose to shop carefully curated local establishments or resale shops — you’ll find several around here — White Rock Center of Hope, EVs, Casa View Thrift or Dolly Python, are a few examples.

Dallas is a good place in general for thrift shopping, according to a new study by the research team at Lawn Love. We rank No. 12 on their list of 200 cities, coming in just behind a few other Texas cities — Houston, San Antonio and Austin.

PhD June Park, a professor at Oklahoma State University’s Department of Design, Housing & Merchandising explains what’s good about thrifting.

“Needless to say, it is good for the environment as you are closing the loop by reusing material goods,” she says, commenting on the study. “It is also a good way to support your community because many thrift stores are locally based, small businesses, and a sizable portion of their earnings goes to charity.”

In 2021, secondhand clothing purchases displaced around 1 billion purchases of new clothing, according to the report, which is so important, because:

“While some new clothing is sourced from sustainable (or even recycled) resources, the fashion industry is still one of the most polluting industries, due to fast fashion, in which companies make clothing cheaply and quickly to keep up with trends,” the authors note. “Unfortunately, these clothes aren’t made to last and quickly end up in landfills.”

For their rankings, the researchers looked at the number of thrift stores, consignment shops, flea markets, Goodwill boutiques, outlets, and other specialty thrift shops in each city. They also considered Google search interest in thrifting-related keywords over the past year, they note.

The secondhand market in the U.S. is expected to reach $82 billion by 2026, according to the report, which is a growth of 127% since 2021. They say 2022 is projected to see the fastest growth, 24%.

See the full list and study here.