As you may or may not know, recently a clothing exchange page was set up on Facebook for students at Mason who are interested in selling or exchanging their used clothing items.
The page quickly experienced a large amount of traffic and sparked a more sustainable way for people to switch up their closets. As college students, we often find ourselves wanting to upgrade our wardrobes and turn to fast fashion as a solution, unfortunately, this isn’t a very sustainable way to do things. People also often just throw out old clothing without thinking about where it goes afterward, so by engaging in something like a clothing exchange you can end up reducing the waste you create!
Related: How to Stop Contributing to Fast Fashion
I sat down with the creator of the clothing exchange page, William Mills, to get his take on sustainable fashion and see what his reasoning was behind creating the page.
Jordan (JL): What inspired you to start the page?
William (WM): Well, it was all kind of an accident really. I woke up one morning and realized that I wanted some new clothes but didn’t want to spend a whole lot of money and they often don’t have fashionable clothing in my size at thrift stores. I took it upon myself to post in one of the Mason Facebook groups to ask if we already had a clothing exchange page set up. When I found out we didn’t, I asked if people would be interested in one if I started it. The response was overwhelmingly positive and it really took off the ground, having gained over a hundred members overnight and continuing to grow.
JL: That’s awesome! Did you expect the page to gain popularity so quickly?
WM: No, I was completely blindsided by the success, but I’m very glad it took off the way it did.
JL: How did you get the idea for an event?
WM: Well, it was something I had wanted to do and I had a couple of people reach out and say that it was something I should do. I posted on the clothing page to see if it was something a lot of people would be interested in and there was a lot of support for it. So I got in contact with Rosevelt at Mason and we decided to partner with each other to make it happen.
JL: What is one thing you want people to take away from your work in sustainable fashion?
WM: Some sick new clothes. And also a little more money to put towards their education and expenses rather than spending it on fast fashion.
JL: That’s great, I’m really glad the clothing exchange page has been so successful! Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.
Being sustainable as a college student can be hard to do, but by getting involved with groups that encourage clothing exchanges and going thrifting or to clothing swaps is a great way to start!
If you’re interested in attending the clothing exchange event on February 13th, 2020, you can RSVP here. You can also find out more about Roosevelt at Mason here, and learn how to get involved with their program.