I resold my wardrobe at Thrifter in June + here’s how it went…

I’ve been attempting for many many years to become a minimalist in my wardrobe, or at the very least try it for a month or two. I’ve always found it so hard though. Putting an outfit together is the one guaranteed creative moment of a day and I thoroughly enjoy it. 

IMAGE CREDIT PINTEREST.

Since having my second child, I’ve found enough motivation to pull the trigger and make it happen. I’ve cleared out upwards of 200 pieces of clothing in the last two months. I couldn’t even tell you what those were now. I barely wore them. I now have a neat 50 hangers in my cupboard with my Queensland Winter/Spring wardrobe. Once summer approaches I’ll replace jeans with linen pants, pack away my jumpers and bring out a few more light dresses. My goal is to try and stay at 50 hangers, plus my activewear draw, which I’ve recently taken from 15 sets to 4 pairs of tights, 4 sports bras and 4 tops. I’ve been trying to not let doing and/or teaching pilates 6 days a week be a reason to own a tonne or activewear. I choose to buy better quality pieces that wash really well. I now very easily run out of clean activewear by Thursday morning if I’m not on top of my washing. I promise the effort of an extra load of washing is less the the constant clothing management you’re already doing (wash, dry, put in basket, put in different basket, fold, leave in basket in room, refold after looking for something, wear a few things, find basket like a treasure chest weeks later because you have so many clothes you can survive without those ones).

HOW TO CLEAR OUT

1 Put any uniforms to the side. This includes any company branded items that you have to wear to to work.

2 Start from zero and add pieces back in. Pull out everything you own and create piles on your bed in categories of tshirts, dresses, jeans etc. Once you’ve done that (and have a hugely messy room, sorry) start to rebuild your wardrobe. One piece goes back in at a time, if you’re really feeling brutal, aim for 3 pieces from each category.

3 Repeat step two, two more times across the next 8 weeks. Be honest about what you actually love to wear, and be prepared to say goodbye to things you love, but simply do not wear anymore.

HOW TO REHOME

1 Sell them on Depop or Facebook Marketplace. I despise the admin associated with this forms of reselling clothing, so I avoid at all costs. However, it’s free! So it’s a great option if you’re not looking to pay any cash up front.

2 Sell them at Thrifter. The whole reason I wanted to write this article was to tell you about Thrifter. It’s a space where you can hire a clothing rack on a monthly basis to fill with your cleared out wardrobe. They then operate as a shop throughout the month where people come in and shop from any and all racks in the warehouse. When they purchase something of yours, it gets listed accordingly and you make 100% of the profit from that sale. It cost me $270 (+ booking fees) to hire a rack downstairs in Thrifter’s Noosa Warehouse for the month of June. My items where priced between $15 and $30 and I had tagged 100 items in preparation for the month. While you have your rack, you can fill it with up to 50 hangers at any one time, so once things sell, you can top it up with new pieces! I sold 75 items across the month of June and made roughly $1,800. This was way above my expectation for the month! I don’t know what the average is for most sellers, but this felt high, and I credit it mostly to the fact that I hadn’t cleared out my wardrobe in 2 years. I had a lot of great stuff to sell, and I won’t have that level of things to sell again for a long time! Thrifter have store in Noosa, Kawana and West End, all with slightly varying rack hire costs. I couldn’t recommend it more. You can see how gorgeous their stores are on their Instagram here, or book a rack on their website here.

3 Send pictures of certain pieces to friends you think might want them. Don’t bombard them with garbage bags full of clothes to go through, think of yourself more like their personal shopper. (EG. that dress your friend always says she loves.)

4 Donate to independent Op Shops wherever possible. These shops resell your clothing within your community and use the money they make in your town. There’s nothing wrong with donating to bigger Op Shop chains, but often your donations will be sent to a statewide sorting centre then distributed wherever they choose.

Now remember how much work that was to responsibly rehome all that excess. Buy what you’ll wear again and again and again and again.

Don’t buy something with the cost analysis to resell it. It means you don’t really want it.

At the end of the day, no style icon is a minimalist. So if that’s high on your to-do list, then this guide maybe isn’t for you. I love and appreciate fashion deeply, but I’m self aware enough to know that my lifestyle in regional Queensland alongside my job as a Pilates teacher & mum to two young kids, doesn’t lend to enormous amounts of time to be head to toe in designer. I instead choose to invest more in the things I do wear over and over again, like sneakers and activewear. This doesn’t mean I have lots of them, it just means I’m willing to spend more on them knowing they’ll be worn and washed multiple times each week.

What are your favourite tips for clearing out and re homing your clothes?

Alexa xx