What Percentage of My Wardrobe is Thrifted?

Recently someone asked me what percentage of my wardrobe is thrifted. The person who asked me this question really sparked my interest because this is something I had never really thought about. Over the past few years, after deciding to quit shopping fast-fashion, I have made a conscious decision to buy my clothes from thrift stores. Meaning, anytime I want to buy something, I try to find it secondhand first. Because of this and because I am a thrift-a-holic, I assumed that approximately 90% of my wardrobe was thrifted.

Now I must admit, this was a not-so-educated guess and I was genuinely curious to find out what percent of my closet was actually thrifted. So, like a crazy person, I counted all of the items in my wardrobe and broke them down into 6 categories:

items bought secondhand
items that were gifted
items picked up from clothing swaps
items bought ethically
items bought unethically
items bought before I cared about shopping ethically

Apparently, my not-so-educated guess was very off! Although I was off, the overall results reflected what I assumed; the majority of the clothes in my wardrobe are thrifted. Seeing that 72% off my wardrobe is secondhand (from thrift stores and clothing swaps) makes me want to happy dance.

What does not make me want to happy dance is the fact the 9% off my wardrobe consists of unethical purchases. I wanted to determine why this number was so high, so I broke my clothes down into categories. It turns out, I have bought all of my panties and mostly all of my socks from unethical companies. I do not feel comfortable thrifting these items, so instead, I should consider buying these from ethical companies such as (Naja or Lara Intimates) in the future.

Although I felt crazy doing it, sitting down and evaluating my wardrobe was a very eye-opening project. I’m a visual person who loves a good infographic, so seeing my wardrobe broken down this way was helpful. I would definitely suggest doing a breakdown of your own closet.