Am I financialy enabling child labor in 3rd world country by buying second hand fast fashion from Thrift shop and Vinted? Because I am not the one who originally bought the clothes from Shein. But buy buying it again from someone else I still use it uhhuhh this is complicated.
So I’m going to come at this from a different perspective because I’ve put a lot of thought in to this topic in other ways. I’m vegan, meaning I do not buy, consume or use any animal products, which obviously includes leather or fur. However since I am not financially supporting those industries by paying for those products and the perpetuation of animal abuse practices, I consider it moral for me to buy those items 2nd hand.
However I do not, for two big reasons:
So to bring it back around, yes you can thrift fast fashion ethically. So long as you understand that anyone who recognize it as fast fashion, will reasonably think you buy fast fashion and support the industry. Up to you if that’s something you are comfortable with it.
Yes. There are also second-order effects at play here. Buying these materials second-hand may normalize their use, or even contribute to fashion trends, which may make other people more likely to buy those materials first-hand. This would of course result in financial support for the leather and fur industries. That said though, these second order effects are very unpredictable and hard to measure, and their strength would vary a lot person to person, depending on how influential someone is.