What the heck? Evidently you can not be too skinny, too, rich, or too wasteful? Are ladies petite of size more supersized in trendy/spendy/wasteful habits than the medium-and-up general population of clothes-wearing ladies? Many times while dumpster diving, I have found what seem like entire wardrobes of XS, S, P and 0- to 2-sized clothing relinquished to garbage cans. In one go, I find a volume equal to 2 big, black garbage bags or 5 or 6 brown paper grocery bags. Sometimes just a few thing left on top of a garbage can.
Oddly, there have been very few M, L, or XL finds on my excursions in spite of the US having a typical size of 14. Are these ladies more frugal or or those sizes more difficult to replace? Thrift stores have a more even distribution. A friend tried to donate her size 0 to 2 clothes and was gently rebuffed by a women's shelter as their need was for larger sizes. Clearance sale items in first-hand store tend to have lots of smaller sizes on clearance, not so much in the middle, and perhaps never had large sizes to start with. Few brick and mortar stores offer plus sized clothing--Lane Bryant and Torrid are two destinations I can think of, perhaps more choice of larger sizes online?
Before I had a teen daughter, I washed and dried (on a hot setting) these finds and offered them to my nieces and petite sisters-in-law. I donated to a food pantry that had a clothing distribution. Now my daughter has dresses, velvet gowns, coats and jackets for all seasons and occasions, cashmere sweaters (1 new with a tag that read $120), dresses and cardigans in all colors of the rainbow by
J Crew. A friend said that we must had rich neighbors and that she could never find things like that in her neighborhood. We bask in the reflected affluence of our neighbors. High rents and high prices to buy homes nearby. But! I have also found things near her house too! I just looked. She was right and she was wrong.
I'm reading/have read/about to read several books on related topics: Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash by Susan Strauser, very interesting and excellent, delicious writing about quilting, reusing, mending, brings to mind boro cloths; others: Where Am I Wearing: A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People That Make Our Clothes; Where Did My Clothes Come From?; Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Secondhand Clothes.
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Oddly, there have been very few M, L, or XL finds on my excursions in spite of the US having a typical size of 14. Are these ladies more frugal or or those sizes more difficult to replace? Thrift stores have a more even distribution. A friend tried to donate her size 0 to 2 clothes and was gently rebuffed by a women's shelter as their need was for larger sizes. Clearance sale items in first-hand store tend to have lots of smaller sizes on clearance, not so much in the middle, and perhaps never had large sizes to start with. Few brick and mortar stores offer plus sized clothing--Lane Bryant and Torrid are two destinations I can think of, perhaps more choice of larger sizes online?
Before I had a teen daughter, I washed and dried (on a hot setting) these finds and offered them to my nieces and petite sisters-in-law. I donated to a food pantry that had a clothing distribution. Now my daughter has dresses, velvet gowns, coats and jackets for all seasons and occasions, cashmere sweaters (1 new with a tag that read $120), dresses and cardigans in all colors of the rainbow by
J Crew. A friend said that we must had rich neighbors and that she could never find things like that in her neighborhood. We bask in the reflected affluence of our neighbors. High rents and high prices to buy homes nearby. But! I have also found things near her house too! I just looked. She was right and she was wrong.
I'm reading/have read/about to read several books on related topics: Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash by Susan Strauser, very interesting and excellent, delicious writing about quilting, reusing, mending, brings to mind boro cloths; others: Where Am I Wearing: A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People That Make Our Clothes; Where Did My Clothes Come From?; Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Secondhand Clothes.
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7 comments:
Clothing Poverty sounds like an interesting read! It's a shame those perfectly good clothes get thrown away - I'm glad you pick them out and give them a second life, rather than ending up in the landfill.
Thank you, yes, plenty of waste in the land of plenty.
In my mother's homeland, a person would pick up a dropped piece of bread and kiss it out of respect. Nothing taken for granted in that place and time.
We do live in a wasteful society. People just do not think of how much we send to the landfill every day. It is odd that you find so many smaller sizes, though. Maybe it is because younger people tend to be both smaller and less frugal.
I read somewhere that there is no "away" when you throw things away. I wish there was a separate pick up service for routing usable things to community free stores. I heard some small town(?) dumps/transfer stations have an area where people can take things they need.
When I find the S sizes it's often near brand new, where the lsrger ones are a bit more used. I tend to think it's from around 12 year olds who've grown out of them quickly. An age group that probably won't accept second hands readily, perhaps that's why the shops don't want them... Well just my luck wearing that size below the waste: never short of good jeanses, recently found myself the most perfect fitting skinny black jeanses, two pairs plus one blue.
I simply cannot imagine throwing tagged clothing in the trash. I would at least keep it for 20 years of remorse before taking it to the charity shop... Strasser's book on waste was fab. A bit boring, I thought, in the middle but it picked up again. Thanks for visiting my blog!
haha, remorse and I are old friends.
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