Across Campo hallways, students are sporting rare fashion finds: from vintage surfwear hoodies to distressed denim from the 90s. The fast-fashion athleisure wear that once drove teenagers to large retailers and malls has vanished, and in its place, the unlikely popularity of thrifting has taken off. But in a digital landscape where online shopping and algorithmic personalization dominates, the emergence of Depop – an online marketplace for buying and selling clothes – has struck a chord. A hub for trendy fashion and baggy jeans, Depop attracts Gen Zers because of its unique peer-to-peer system fueled by teens with a niche.
Junior Viviana Sanchez is a veteran Depop curator who first got into thrifting out of a desire to procure clothes in “an inexpensive” way. “I just started accumulating so much stuff that I couldn’t keep it in my house. So I started selling it to make money and to be able to keep thrifting.”
Sanchez, who opened her digital store in January 2024, has experienced meteoric growth. “It’s going really well…I’m doing more events, and it’s very fun. I don’t have to work a typical high school job, and I get to choose my own hours.”
Senior Nico Morando, another Depop seller who started out by thrifting, attributes the platform’s rise to its overwhelmingly young userbase. “Of course [when selling clothes] you’re looking at eBay because everyone knows it. I chose Depop instead since a lot of young people are on it and in turn there is more that is appealing to me.”
According to the New York Times, roughly 400,000 items are uploaded to the website each day, mostly catering to a Gen Z audience. Senior Liv Maestre, a frequent Depop shopper, said “[Depop] helps you find very niche and specific pieces that may no longer be sold or are vintage…all at a lower price.”
In a world of fast fashion, Depop has not only popularized secondhand clothing with a younger audience, but has also served as a method to reduce clothing waste. Sanchez said “I volunteer at [Leftovers in Tice Valley] and a lot of what we get we have to throw away just because it’s not perfect…I try to be mindful about where I source clothes [for Depop]. I try to look through the bins, which is one step before the landfill.
Maestre added, “There is this trend of hyper consumption where people are buying a lot more clothes and donating a lot more clothes, which then goes to landfill. So I think it’s important that instead of letting those clothes go to waste, we give them this second life.”
For students eager to become Depop curators, Morando shared some advice about the importance of starting small by selling some old clothes before “you go out and start putting a lot of time and energy into it.” From there, he added that “If you really want to up your game, pictures are the most important thing for customers because the first impression of the clothing item you’re going to see are the pictures.”
