House of Fashion club holds pop-up thrift shop
House of Fashion Vice President Camila Sobrevilla and Art Director Nolan “Fish” Navarro spoke about fashion sustainability during a club pop-up thrift shop last Wednesday outside of the Student Union on the Edinburg campus.
Navarro, a mass communication senior, said it is important to promote second-hand shopping because of the amount of pollution fast fashion creates.
“I don’t think most students understand the repercussions that comes with shopping on fast-fashion sites like Shein or even shopping at La Plaza Mall [in McAllen],” they said.
Sobrevilla, a mass communication freshman, said holding a thrift shop helps people spend their money on clothes that no longer support the practices of larger companies that damage the environment since those clothes can be simply reworn.
“Thrift shopping is extremely important because they’re one-of-a-kind clothes that no one else will have and you’re not really spending your money on clothes that were made in an unsustainable manner, whether it’s in, I don’t know, sweatshops and stuff like that,” she said. “You’re spending your money on clothes that will not harm the environment because they have already been worn and you’re just rewearing them.”
Mathew Castaneda, a theatre freshman, shopped at the pop-up thrift store and said the return of fashion trends, such as the Y2K style, is what makes thrift stores popular and prevents further post-consumer waste.
“It’s actually really helpful to me, because, I mean, I get to find cute clothes but … it also, like, helps the environment because there’s not so much waste of clothes,” Castaneda said.
Gabriela Peña, a management sophomore, also shopped at the pop-up thrift store and said she has been shopping at secondhand stores since she was young and is glad to see how certain trends come back after a long time. She also talked about high-end brands’ product disposal practices.
House of Fashion hosts a pop-up shop outside the Student Union on the Edinburg campus. The pop-up shop was a fundraiser for the organization’s end-of-year fashion show. Aurora Acevedo/THE RIDER PHOTOS
“There’s a lot of brands who, if something isn’t sold within a time period … instead of, like, donating it, some fashion stores will burn it so that way nobody can have their work without paying for it,” Peña said.
Besides clothes, Navarro said the items sold at the pop-up shop were either donated, thrifted or curated from vintage shops.
Along with supporting fashion sustainability, the thrift shop will help the club raise funds for its fashion show Dec. 6.
Navarro said the House of Fashion will host another pop-up thrift shop later this month. Sobrevilla said it will have a Halloween theme.
The club plans to conduct a “casting call for models, designers and stylists who are interested in showing at the fashion show,” Navarro said.
“If you’re interested in getting your hands into fashion and getting a little bit more experience, this is a casting call to come to,” they said. “It’s essentially just to help promote people who are trying to get into the fashion industry and give them a job to do for the fashion show.”
