If a small tear or lost button is keeping you from holding onto a piece, consider bringing it to your local tailor, dry cleaner, or using a sewing kit to mend it yourself. Try home remedies such as laundry soap, water, and vinegar to remove stains. “There are quite a bit of things that aren’t wildly difficult to do,” says Camille Tagle, cofounder and creative director of Fabscrap, a textile reuse service. “It’s [about] changing your behaviors. Really try thinking through the longevity of the piece and investing in it.”
You’ve Made Your Donation Pile. Now What?
If you truly no longer see yourself wearing an item and it’s still in good condition, turn to peer-to-peer marketplaces like Depop, Poshmark, Etsy, and eBay for reselling. Many of these sites will create shipping labels, so all you’ve got to do is drop the packaged garment off at the post office. If you want to sell on a smaller scale, host an Instagram Stories sale and coordinate local pickup with buyers.
Over the past decade, more and more brands have created in-person and online resell, mending, and donation platforms. Los Angeles Apparel offers Swapmeet, enabling customers to resell past purchases through their order history. Patagonia’s Worn Wear program allows buyers to trade in old gear with the option to return or recycle unwanted items. Last fall, Zara launched its resell and repair platform, Pre-Owned, in the US; and three years before that, Madewell partnered with ThredUp for Preloved, a secondhand marketplace.
The resell policies for different brands are often explicit and their mending services return your garments to you. But when donating back to brands, and generally any chain like Goodwill or the Salvation Army, carefully reading their guidelines is critical to best ensure your items are accepted and not just landfilled.
Still, it can be tricky to know exactly where your items will end up, and the most ideal option for decluttering is to donate locally. Nonprofits such as Dress for Success and One Warm Coat have branches across the US, each outlining their specific requests and donation days by location. Dress for Success looks for gently worn professional attire for women, which it puts to use in its suiting program and job training, while One Warm Coat accepts clean and wearable coats for children and adults. Mutual aid groups and local churches are especially reliable places to look into when making clothing donations, and many update their seasonal or weekly needs on Facebook.
“It’s essential to try donating to local charities and donation centers, because their work will be localized to your neighborhood,” explains Columbia graduate student Megan Fillo, who works alongside Waxman at Impact Fashion, the university’s fashion sustainability organization.
Fillo often turns to her neighborhood’s Buy Nothing group, a gifting community network where members are able to trade or gift pieces they would otherwise donate. “You know the item is something someone explicitly wants, and you don’t risk it being shipped into the Global South or ending up in a landfill,” Fillo adds.
