Secondhand As Soft Rebellion – What Wearing Your Values Really Means

“I work at the intersections of human rights, storytelling, personal style, and gentle systems disruption.

Today, I’m the Garage Sale Trail social media manager. Garage Sale Trail is Australia’s biggest secondhand treasure hunt – an IRL way to connect with your neighbours, sell your preloved stuff, make some money, and share the stories behind your once-loved belongings from your front yard, driveway, apartment block, school, or community group.

When I still lived in Sydney, I was one of the first sustainable stylists in Australia when wearing and styling editorials in secondhand and vintage wasn’t as cool as it is today. For example, I worked as the National Eco Stylist at Save the Children Australia, where I helped inspire and educate people to ’op shop’ first over buying new, and provided pathways for marginalized communities to have access to clothing. I also worked at The Social Outfit as a retail trainer and manager, helping to train and upskill women from the refugee, asylum seeker, and refugee community in ethical retail practices. The Social Outfit is a not-for-profit and social enterprise that uses deadstock textiles donated from the Australian Fashion industry to create new clothing.

In 2017, I started my own online sustainable fashion platform, ‘tommie magazine’, celebrating and uplifting local sustainable fashion designers and sewing technicians in the garment industry. I hosted panel discussions, documentary screenings, and markets to help bring the stories of what happens behind the scenes to the forefront. I hosted sustainable style walking tours in my neighbourhood, and we even had an online vintage shop on the tommie magazine platform where I sourced and curated all the pieces.

vintage whale sweatshirt

colorful fish print

vintage maxi fish print dress

vintage whale sweatshirt

Secondhand is not a way of dress I discovered later in life; it’s really all I’ve ever known.

I grew up in a low socioeconomic environment, living in public housing, so financial resources were always limited. I had to become really thrifty and creative with what I had access to. My mum and I would hit up garage sales, pick up things people threw out on the streets, we visited opshops (thrift stores) and I used to get hand me ups as a kid (I don’t like calling them hand me downs because there’s so much power in the language we use when we associate value to the clothes we wear).

Expressing myself through the art of dress has always been a part of my world, and it’s the power of preloved that has always fuelled this. Secondhand clothing has always been my paintbrush and a way I wear my heart (values) on my sleeve. It’s always been important for me to help inspire and role model behaviour that anyone can wear and LOVE secondhand.

brown and black patchwork

green and black blouse

Big fashion (AKA fast fashion) manipulates us into thinking there are rules that we must follow, and if we don’t, we are ‘less than’ – and frankly, that’s just crap!

It’s a way capitalist systems have a chokehold on us because it forces us to be ongoing consumers, not citizens of the world, and we have so much more power than that. By choosing to rewear our clothes, to outfit repeat, to be unapologetically individual through wearing secondhand clothes, this tells the overproducing capitalist machines that we won’t buy into what they’re selling. It’s a way to resist and be good rebels.

Your sense of style belongs to you, and to you only. To have greater agency over the clothes we wear is to have greater agency over our bodies, our sense of identity, belonging, and creativity.

These can be ever-evolving as our life and personhood change, and that’s ok, but secondhand clothing is the perfect medium for experimenting and playing.

My style and connection to used clothing have only become more emboldened over the years. I love that when I strut the streets, my outfits belong to me and only me; it’s the best feeling being unapologetically you. And people always smile or spark up a conversation about my outfits. It’s a beautiful way to connect with people you don’t even know!

floral 80s set

purple striped shirt

yellow cowboy boots

floral 80s set

Secondhand really is the triple treat when it comes to people, planet, and your pocket. I think for a lot of people who want to make the leap to secondhand/preloved, from buying new or fast fashion, the psychology around getting dressed fundamentally needs to change - and this doesn’t happen overnight. We often think clothing is frivolous, and so the thinking often is that it doesn’t deserve the same amount of attention or love as other parts of our lives. People also often associate clothing with convenience and functionality – they don’t think of it as art, or a living and breathing reflection of who we are.

But clothing and getting dressed are important pillars of our daily lives – it impacts how we feel, our connection to ourselves, and how we turn up in the world – it deserves care, attention, thoughtfulness, and creativity.

I think finding ’good stuff’ is really in the eyes of the beholder. Try new things, and look for things that bring you joy. For me personally, when I thrift, I don’t go looking for something specific – to me, this is the joy and wonder of thrifting. The element of surprise and spontaneity, and the detachment from attaining, is embedded in the consumer mindset. For me, it’s about enjoying the process of not knowing. This opens up the spectrum of possibilities. My personal rule of thumb, however, is that I only buy vintage, handmade, or upcycled pieces from thrift stores. For me, I don’t want to support anything that hasn’t been ethically made, no matter where it is in the supply chain - this is part of my personal value system.”

Follow Natalie on Instagram @nattystylist