The plus size vintage and secondhand landscape can feel overwhelming for the unpracticed consumer. There are simultaneously too many options and too few. Fast fashion, cheap fabrics, and dated “trends” — we’re looking at you, cold-shouldered flowy tunics — are around every corner in consignment store racks and in the digital clutter of the online resale market.
The frustration that many plus size shoppers like myself feel when thrifting is compounded by how necessary it feels to shop secondhand right now. Many mainstream brands are rolling back their inclusive sizing, reducing the number of options for fat people. We’ve also seen the closure of beloved size-inclusive brands like Wray and Mara Hoffman in the past few years.
Combine those phenomena with the continued proliferation of mass-produced, low-quality, hyper trendy pieces — and a TikTok algorithm that encourages us to burn through “core” aesthetics at warp speed, creating endless clothing waste that harms both people and the environment. (And makes us all start to dress the same.) And somehow through all of that, we’re supposed to find our unique personal style and sift through hundreds of stained, 70% polyester garments while sweating in a Savers?
OK, now that we’ve addressed all the hurdles working against plus size shoppers, we can look for solutions. Plus size thrift shopping doesn’t have to feel like some insurmountable task. Below, we talked to secondhand and vintage plus size shopping experts about how to find cute, high-quality options both online and in your local stores.
Document and measure what you have
“Before you buy anything outside, look at what you have inside,” says Naheemah Azor, a fashion designer, stylist, and content creator in Portland, Oregon who creates custom thrift bundles for plus size shoppers. Truly sustainable shopping, after all, is about more than just buying quality, ethically-made, and/or secondhand items. It’s about being intentional with what you need and what you want.
Once you see what you have, measure it. Emma Zack, who founded the popular Brooklyn vintage and secondhand store Berriez, recommends getting a soft measuring tape and writing down your bust, waist, and hip so you don’t have to try stuff on in person, or for when you can’t try stuff on online.
But you can also measure the clothes you wear all the time, says Victoria Holmes, a Sacramento, California-based stylist and personal shopper who runs her own business, Shop PENNY, that caters to mid and plus size clientele.
