10 Instagram Thrift Shop That You Must Check Out

Hey, I hope you all are doing well

Like today I want to talk about fashion but fashion that would not really hurt the environment or your pocket. I promote sustainable fashion and lifestyle, as we all know sometimes these sustainable brands can be expensive which is not afforded by all, but there is an alternative. Thrift shopping, I have been doing it from past two years now and I have saved money yet got everything I needed or wished for. Thrift stores are all mostly all about decluttering/preloved fashion. I am a sustainable traveller and this is a collective collaboration with these thrift stores, as I have purchased and built a relationship with them now. I understand that it is hard to give up on fast fashion but it isn’t impossible when you make a conscious choice for the environment. The concept of thrift shops in India is still new. Very less people understand that it isn’t always used but times unused, hardly used products are just being sold off so that they get a new home and doesn’t land up in the landfills. So I just wanted to share my personal experience and get you all introduced to some of my favourite thrift shops over Instagram. All you interested people you will have the option to choose and see it for yourself that thrift shopping is budget-friendly it doesn’t have to be bad, rather it is awesome. It is the best alternative shopping option.

FirstSecondHand – The store is run by two of us: Muskaan and Stuti. We’re both studying fashion design in Gandhinagar. Currently, we are handling the store from two locations Chandigarh and Jaipur as we’re stuck at home due to the pandemic. We realised that we own so many pieces of clothing and footwear that we left behind and they are in very good condition- almost as good as new. We really didn’t want to waste such good pieces and also wanted to de-clutter, that is when we realised that there is this entire community of thrifters and handcrafters on Instagram who wants to gradually move away from fast fashion and do their part as a conscious consumer, and we wanted to do the same with all our heart. That is when we decided that we are going to start an Instagram thrift store together, to make sure that all these lovely pieces that we own and create find a new and loving home. We’d been holding onto these clothes because as people who have a passion for fashion we used to attach emotional value to our clothes but we also realised that as a designer we have a responsibility on ourselves to be conscious. It has been almost three weeks since we started our little store. All the clothes that we send out are in very good condition, thoroughly sanitized and the packaging we use is reused from the parcels we receive and leftover papers from out notebooks and assignments. Our goal is to choose slow fashion as much as we can and be conscious of what we consume and put out it’s our little step towards what we believe in. With all the fast-fashion companies constantly mass-producing clothing items day in and day out, the practice of thrifting is like a breeze of fresh air. It might not be the ultimate solution, but it definitely is one small step forward towards slowly and steadily breaking the vicious cycle of fast fashion, and we’re glad to be a part of this movement. We have a bunch of exciting things planned ahead and we hope that we can continue to do what we believe in.

Thrift_shop_shooky – I always love thrifting since I was young. I don’t mind wearing thrifted clothes/pre-loved one as I can get at a cheaper price and sustainable .i love the concept of recycling. Thrifting is so much fun, it’s like treasure hunting. And if you found what you like, it’s like hitting a jackpot! I started my thrift page since May 2020. I currently live in Maharashtra for my studies and I’m planning to head back home to Mizoram. Since I’m planning to move, I started the page in the hope of clearing out my closet cause some pieces to deserve a second home. Since I got so much love and support, I started posting for others too. (cause mine got all sold out. My feed is mixed with different sellers whom I personally knew or trusted. Once things get back to normal, I’ll try to source more thrifted good quality clothes myself, in a broke student price. 

The Thrift Shop – Ever since we’ve been kids, we’ve been encouraged to use hand-me-downs from family and friends. This whole idea initially was a simple WhatsApp group with a bunch of friends and friends of friends exchanging clothes. Our main concern was hygiene, this is why we were only open to using the outfits of people we knew. We then thought to ourselves if good care and hygiene can be taken care of, more people might be able to get involved. With this, we took this further and added a structure, created some processes, and voila, we were The Thrift Shop. We went live on 24th July 2019. Can’t believe it has been been a year. Our thrifters are extremely friendly, understanding and love what we do. It’s been a great journey so far. We’ve enjoyed doing this and cant wait to see what’s in store next.

Like. Buy. Slay – This is a new experience for me and my business partner but we want to give it a try. So we came up with the name “Like. Buy. Slay” because its really obvious from our personal experience that anyone shops to like the item, buy it so that they can pair it up with any outfit or accessories and slay it. Being fashionable and comfortable is what one aspires to be from a customers perspective and not as a seller. We started this page to sell new items but later we learned about sustainability and Fast Fashion in an article and we decided that if thrifting would help save the environment and our Mother Earth than why not contribute by taking small steps and thus our thrifting adventure began on Feb 2020. The Thrifting Community has been such a good family to us and we also purchase a lot of items from other thrift pages as well. The main motive behind our page is to sell hand-picked items, wash them with love and care, curate them so that it finds a new home/owner. We also sell our close friend’s clothes as we believe that not everyone can open a thrift page and manage it from scratch, we only sell items of close people as we had a very bad experience in selling a strangers stuff which needs a lot of explanation but in short, it was disappointing. We are not sure about what the future holds, nor do we want to be a hypocrite by talking about being an environmentalist and sugar-coat all sorts of aims that we can’t give it to the people but one thing we want to do is to stay lowkey and work hard to reach out to the customer’s needs and upgrade the quality of the items by picking out the best ones, for which it will require timeless effort and a lot of patience.

Chichi_n_co – I come from the small town hills of Kohima, Nagaland, a state of the Northeastern part of India. As you may have heard, our land has an abundance of thrift stores with fairly good clothes or should I say, northeasterners have learned the art of thrifting. Either way, I wasn’t always a thrifter as you would think and Chichi_n_co didn’t start as a thrift store, it started about 2 years ago with a friend of mine and our intention was to sell pre-loved items but not necessarily thrifted things, it had more to do with clearing our closets, selling gadgets or just whatever we could get at throwaway prices from our small adventures around town but soon after my friend had left I decided to do closet clearances for other people too as I had gotten a lot of requests. It went on for a while after which I started to post some of my thrift finds too because things were selling well and a lot of people wanted to buy what I would wear to college. Hence, I started to thrift more and more and that’s how my page grew over a period of time now. It was only later on, probably after a year or so I started to think about the word sustainable, while thrifting I realized there are enough clothes on the planet amazing ones, which can be carry forwarded by a new owner, with further research I was convinced that I wanted to promote thrifting, for people to understand second-hand clothes aren’t bad clothes, they’re just by-products of the privilege of a more developed nation and we can do so much good for the planet. Still, be fashionable look good or even better while wearing some amazing thrifted clothes. 

Huckleberry Hangers – 1 May 2020 this was born. I have been wearing thrifted & preloved clothes long before I can even remember. Coming from Darjeeling and not so affluent family, my dad purchased me and my sister a lot of thrifted clothes especially winter ones. My love for thrift started more when I grew up, as an alternative to expensive clothes as a young adult but I always felt a negative connotation attached to it so much so that I and my friend had a secret code for it.  I started Huckleberry Hangers, firstly because I was in a constant search to do something on my own and for myself. I was greatly inspired  & influenced by ‘ Rich Dad & Poor Dad’ by Robert Kiyosaki, I would listen to his videos and read the book. Back in the days when I was in school one of our teacher who taught was teaching us about a Nepali poet who always told others ‘even if its a small business, one should always try to do something of you own’ and that stuck forever in my mind.  Secondly, coming from a strong research background from TISS ( Mumbai), there was a lot of brainstorming, countless reading & gathering data & self-analysis. I learned the positive implications of thrifting for the environment & also I realised I was good at thrifting and always have been so why not! Thirdly, I was often remarked for quirky fashion sense by a lot of people, I took this as an opportunity to why just not try. Fourth, Having an experience of how PR works always have its pros! Mixing an ambition to do something of one own’s, research & analysis skills, a quirky fashion sense & experience go how PR works was a cherry on the cake. Thus Huckleberry Hangers was born !! 

Ray_thriftstore – My store is run single-handed by me and it started last year November when I was doing a part-time job for a few months. I was told to wear formal and I’d wear some of my thrifted satin shirts to work and my boss (lady) and her cousins would ask me where did you buy this it is so pretty and I’d say it’s thrifted. And she told me that I’m really good in it (thrifting) and later she was gonna start an online store in instagram and wanted me to handle it for her that’s when I thought about starting my own online thrift store. I first started with the things I already had and later, saved some money from my part-time job’s salary and added more items for my store. When I got my first order and she reviewed saying how much she loved it, I still remember how joyful I was and that’s what kept me going, my first customer. I slowly realised, running an online thrift store involved all the things I always enjoyed doing and which I could do even for free, like thrifting, taking pictures, packaging, and so on. And even though my real name is different, the name ray sounds somewhat similar to my name so I kept a simple name for my store. It is based in Dimapur, Nagaland but I might shift to a different state in a few months but it’ll always be based in North East.

Tboz_thrift – I started this store because I was a little depressed about what was happening in and around my surroundings. The sad news all around about people dying and suffering was too much for me and then out of nowhere we were hit by the pandemic and suddenly lockdown, everything stood still. So I thought to keep myself busy and occupied I will start making stuff like mask and pouches etc. Whatever little I can as I love stitching and I told myself to try it out as that was the best I could do. Then one day I was just browsing over Instagram and I saw people selling their unused/ preloved clothes so I thought why not I do it myself, clean out my closet. That’s how it started and now I am enjoying the interacting with others, I get to come across new people and make friends so now it is like a small extended virtual family. Teaching me so much during this quarantine.

Oakark_thrift – It’s not been very long since we started with Oakark. I came across a few vintage tees and cute handbags on Instagram once, a thrift page was selling them at a super low price so I dug a little deeper in all the thrift pages and realised this is exactly what we all need. And just the next day, I made a page of my own to clear out my closet. On reading more about it, I realised that thrifting is nice to the planet and also, its better for the people! We want to introduce thrifting to a greater number of people because thrifting reduces new items being produced and the need for someone to produce that. Resulting in a sustainable environment and lesser people with exploited worker rights. Recycling, upcycling and making clothes from scratch adds so much to the piece of clothing. And more importantly, the thrill of finding a beautiful vintage piece is compared to nothing else. Moreover, the love we have received in this community is tremendous. Thrifting is surely a great experience! You don’t burn a hole in your wallet while doing your bit for the planet.

Thev_intage – I’ve always been extremely excited when it comes to thrifting, I started this since I was 16 and never stopped until today. No wonder the reason I’m in love with thrifting is that it’s affordable, eco-friendly and sustainable. It was 22nd of May 2020 when I started this small business on Instagram and I seriously had no idea how to ship the items how to pack it and all those stuff, I was all confused. it was a sudden idea that struck me at 11:45 A.M while I was watching other thrift shops on Instagram. Till then I was just tossing around in my bed. I still remember the first message from my customer that made me so happy and excited to begin this in the first place, it’s been only 2nd half months and ‘The Vintage’ has grown and I am more than happy to see this grow. My customers are times very mysterious, they make me emotional. I often think about how things would have been today if I didn’t start this. To all the love and support I got for my hard work so far. I’m thankful and in full faith that ‘The Vintage’ will grow bigger in days to come.

I am so happy to be able to curate this, I am already in the process of making the second curation. Enjoy shopping, be mindful and fashionable always. Love, Love.