Meet Kristi and Chiarra, board members for the Indie Sellers Guild, a nonprofit dedicated to providing education and support to all online creative indie sellers around the world.  The Indie Sellers Guild got its start in 2022 while organizing the Etsy Strike, when about 17,000 shops put their Etsy storefronts on vacation mode, effectively preventing customers from shopping.  In this week's episode,  Kristi and Chiarra will explain how "reserves" are having a negative impact on small...

Meet Kristi and Chiarra, board members for the Indie Sellers Guild, a nonprofit dedicated to providing education and support to all online creative indie sellers around the world.  The Indie Sellers Guild got its start in 2022 while organizing the Etsy Strike, when about 17,000 shops put their Etsy storefronts on vacation mode, effectively preventing customers from shopping.  In this week's episode,  Kristi and Chiarra will be telling us about what led to the Etsy strike, the outcome, and...

It's that time again…time for Clotheshorse to SAVE Halloween! And for this very important mission, Amanda is joined by a Clotheshorse all-star, Maggie Greene, the Halloween Queen!  You’ll get to meet some fabulous guests while we talk about all of the ways we can save Halloween from the ghouls of capitalism, waste and overconsumption.  You’ll be haunted by all of the scary facts about Halloween waste, but hopefully you’ll also be inspired to make this Halloween better than ever, putting the...

It's that time again…time for Clotheshorse to SAVE Halloween! And for this very important mission, Amanda is joined by a Clotheshorse all-star, Maggie Greene, the Halloween Queen!  Over the next two episodes, you’ll get to meet some fabulous guests while we talk about all of the ways we can save Halloween from the ghouls of capitalism, waste and overconsumption.  You’ll be haunted by all of the scary facts about Halloween waste, but hopefully you’ll also be inspired to make this Halloween...

In part three of three, Amanda explores fast fashion 1.0 and 3.0 through the lens of her career: How the industry uses things like #Girlboss, feminist tees, and cause marketing to sell you more stuff. When fast fashion becomes desperate and starts embracing greenwashing and new revenue streams like rental and resale. WTF is the de minimus rule and how is it benefitting fast fashion 3.0? We'll be talking a lot about Shein and its peers. Additional reading:"After Months of Reported...

In part two of now THREE, Amanda explores fast fashion 1.0 and 2.0 through the lens of her career.  In this episode we will break down all of the acrobatics brands did to bring their customers more and more newness, faster and faster.   How fashion got faster with some help from social media and the normalization of shopping online. How retailers began to commodify every holiday and occasion, creating products we didn't really need for every and any "event." Why fast fashion retailers...

In part one of three, Amanda explores the rise of fast fashion 1.0 through the lens of her career as a buyer: How economic and social factors helped it blow up in the 2000s (and why millennials are "The Fast Fashion Generation"). Its impact on workers throughout the world. How it altered both consumer behavior and our perception of price and value. The changes brands made in order to remain highly profitable while selling everything at a lower price. And we'll learn who coined the term "fast...

Amanda is joined by Zoe Edwards, host of Check Your Thread.  This is part two of their conversation. Zoe gives us advice on how we can sew more sustainably.  And Amanda explains "fast fashion 3.0" and Cider. Get connected with Zoe:Check Your ThreadIntroduction to Garment Fabrics (by Zoe)Zoe's personal sewing blog Instagram: @checkyourthread Additional reading:"How Cider became TikTok’s go to brand, despite ‘cultural appropriation’ and ‘stolen’ designs," Lydia Venn, The Tab."Don’t Bother...

Amanda is joined by Zoe Edwards, host of Check Your Thread.  This is part one of their conversation. They will be talking about how and why Zoe started a podcast about sewing and her relationship with sewing. They will also unpack the privileges that make sewing more challenging or inaccessible for many people (and how it could be better).  Amanda explains the connection between Temu, "996" work culture, and forced labor. Get connected with Zoe:Check Your ThreadIntroduction to Garment Fabrics...

It's the second half of Amanda's conversation with Danielle Vermeer, co-founder and CEO of Teleport, “a next-gen thrifting app to discover, buy, and sell from outfit videos.” They will be talking about greenwashing, PSYOPs, and online conversations around secondhand shopping…and so much more!  Amanda gets things started with an in-depth look at a brand that seems to be flourishing in the era of ultra fast fashion, Dolls Kill. Download the Teleport app.Additional reading:"ULTRA-FAST FASHION IS...

Amanda is joined by Danielle Vermeer, co-founder and CEO of Teleport, “a next-gen thrifting app to discover, buy, and sell from outfit videos.”  They explore why Shein is so popular with Gen Z (and many, many millennials) despite their drive for social and environmental justice.  Amanda gets things rolling with a breakdown of the evolution of fast fashion to ultra fast fashion and an explanation of the new Shein lawsuit. Download the Teleport app. Read more:"TikTok Shop: The newest avenue for...

Amanda is joined by keynote speaker, life coach, master tailor, and sustainability activist Isabel Varela. At 26, she found herself with more than $100,000 in credit card debt...all from clothes, cosmetics, and accessories.  She’ll tell us how she got there, how she got out of it, and how she has helped others work through their addiction to shopping. Also: Mall Madness and how your shopping search results may not be what you think they are.Learn more about Isabel here: isabelvarela.com Find...

Amanda is joined by award-winning journalist and sustainable fashion expert, Alden Wicker. She will tell us about her new book, To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion Is Making Us Sick – and How we can Fight Back. We will be talking about the chemicals on brand new clothing being sold right now, what the impact of these chemicals is (and yes, it’s major nightmare fuel), and what we can do to protect ourselves.  Also, Amanda explains why retailers are betting big on the Barbie movie and how collective...

This week, Amanda is joined by Joanne Brasch, PhD, the Special Projects Manager for the California Product Stewardship Council (CPSC). She is going to help us understand how EPR works and how it will impact business, planet, communities, and us as consumers. She also will tell us about all of the projects and stakeholders involved in CPSC’s projects and legislation goals.  And she will tell us how we can practice our own “textile stewardship.”  This episode also includes a message from Erin. ...

Maggie Greene and Ruby Gertz are back for the final installment of our three part series about dress codes and uniforms.  In this episode, we will be sharing stories about dress codes and uniforms from the Clotheshorse community.  We’ll also learn more about uniforms, particularly in Japan, and the laws around uniforms here in the United States.  And we’ll also do some exploration of the 1977 bestselling book, The Women's Dress for Success Book, which essentially laid down the framework for...

Maggie Greene and Ruby Gertz are back to continue the conversation about dress codes. This episode is part 2 of 3.  This week we will be tackling the concept of "professionalism" and how that ties into dress codes. We will do a deep dive into the different categories of professional dress. And we will get to the bottom of how/why these dress codes are enforced, despite the language within these policies being very subjective and unmeasurable.  This episode also includes thoughts/stories from...

Clotheshorse all-stars Maggie Greene and Ruby Gertz return to Clotheshorse to unpack dress codes and uniforms with Amanda. This episode is part one of a short series. In this episode, we’ll be talking about our own experiences with dress codes and uniforms. Ruby will give us a history lesson on the dress codes over the years. We’ll also unpack both implicitly stated dress codes and implied/socially prescribed rules around dressing, and some of them may surprise you! We recommend reading...

Meet Lisa, the owner of Two Big Blondes, a plus size consignment shop in Seattle, Washington.  We will be talking about the challenges of running a consignment shop, her advice for all of you looking for plus size secondhand clothing, and how the fashion industry has a long way to go in many, many ways…including the way it does and does not dress larger people.  And Amanda digs in to how and why the industry is failing when it comes to sizing and size inclusivity. Seattle Women's Assistance...

"Is clothing rental a sustainable option?"  Amanda breaks down the very complicated answer in this episode. Extra Credit Reading"Renting clothing is worse for the planet than just throwing it away, study shows," Elizabeth Segran, Fast Company.Rent the Runway's internal study on sustainability"Ready to Return: Fashion Rental Is Back," Elizabeth Paton and Sapna Maheshwari, The New York Times."Rent the Runway CEO says it is changing how it buys apparel from brands to boost its profits," Lauren...

Today we’ll dig into the early days of Etsy, with special attention on the very crafty, very political, very community-driven primordial soup that birthed Etsy.  This will be a majorly nostalgic moment for some of you, especially if you’ve ever subscribed to Bust or attended a Stitch 'n Bitch night.  We are going to spend most of this episode in 2005, but we'll take a brief trip back to 1998 to learn about Jean Railla and her website, Get Crafty, which brought together a new generation of...

While Amanda takes a few weeks off to go to Japan, do a bunch of research and reading, work on outreach for future guests, and just generally get inspired and rested, let's revisit some of the favorite episodes of the Clotheshorse community. Throwaway culture may not seem to affect you personally (spoiler: it actually is), but the rapid cycle of shop/wear a few times/donate is having a massive negative impact on humans, animals, and the planet...it’s just happening out of our line of sight....

While Amanda takes a few weeks off to go to Japan, do a bunch of research and reading, work on outreach for future guests, and just generally get inspired and rested, let's revisit some of the favorite episodes of the Clotheshorse community. The thrift industry has a major impact on the humans working within it.  Wages are low, expectations are high, and there is little room for advancement.  Also: it’s gross and frequently dangerous.  In 2021, Dylan and Ryan worked for one of the largest...

Why does "unisex" clothing always have a menswear aesthetic? How is clothing marketed differently toward men and women? And why is sizing so weird?  In these week's episode, we'll be talking all about gender and the history of sizing in the fashion industry. Amanda is joined by Ruby Gertz and Clotheshorse all-star Maggie Greene to break down these important questions. Get 15% off your first order with Canopy Kids with promo code CLOTHESHORSE. Use the GEM app to find vintage and secondhand...

Now that we have debunked all of the myths that form the core of anti-reseller rhetoric, we’ve uncovered a lot of larger systemic issues that are the actual causes of the frustrating things being falsely blamed on resellers. In the final installment of this series examining the ethics of secondhand resale, Amanda explores how the secondhand system can be more equitable and less wasteful.   We will address the following questions: What could bring thrift store prices back to a more accessible...

This week’s episode is part three of what is now a FOUR episode series (surprise!) examining the ethics of secondhand resale with Alex of St. Evens.In the third installment, we will be exploring the final myth: Resellers misrepresent what they’re selling, list things at wildly inflated prices, and overall behave miserably both online and in person.  We will also explore what we think is at the root of all of this anti-reseller rhetoric that just seems to become more and more extreme with each...