“Sustainable Fashion”: Repackaged Working-Class Consumption Habits or New Age Revolution?

The daily fashion rule book was wholly different before the pandemic. Years before ultra-fast fashion giants, or the reactionary rise of sustainable fashion in the mainstream, ordinary people clothed and styled themselves in an entirely contrasting way to today. Namely, there was a lack of the idea of sustainable fashion. In 2025, platforms like Vinted are hot commodities for second-hand shopping, but six years ago, there was intense stigma around dressing second-hand, especially within working-classes.

In this pre-pandemic world, working-class style rules were specific: fresh, brand-new trainers, branded everything, high-end watches and jewellery (even if they are the cheapest you can find). If you’re alien to the British working-class lifestyle, it could sound ridiculous that some of the poorest consumers were looking to style themselves in expensive ways. However, these unwritten rules were designed to distance them away from stigmas they had faced for so long. Charity shop clothes, visible mending or having run-down outfits were all stereotypical markers of struggling. In an effort to avoid being identified as such, the culture ran away from traditional consumption habits.

Now in 2025, after an online social justice awakening, enduring the fast fashion storm that is Shein and Temu and increased awareness around malpractice in the industry, many of those typical working-class consumption habits are now common practice for conscious fashion consumers. This growing group tends to be middle-class, yet their behaviours in the name of sustainability have morphed into those of the classes below them – the very ones that were historically frowned upon.

Sustainable fashion is a real and valid outlook on improving practices in fashion but has somewhat been distorted to become a trend by upper-class influencers to demonstrate a sense of social justice and political activism. Yet, many of the supposed ‘trends’ perpetuated by these influencers have existed within marginalised groups for decades. Take the clothing swap as an example; a simple premise which is being heralded as the newest sustainable fashion find across social media, influencers marvelling at their newest find. Turn your eyes to immigrant and working-class towns across the country however, and you’ll find the concept has existed longer than these influencers have been alive. Passing around black bags with a daughter’s outgrown cloths or uniform swaps in parish halls for new primary school students. These are clothing swaps, perhaps not aesthetic or easily marketable, but still a clothing swap nonetheless. It’s a perfect example of simple behaviours that were common practice amongst those who couldn’t consume any other way becoming fads for others to cling on to to earn their sustainability badge.

Working-class consumers are also being priced out of historically one of their biggest markets: second-hand clothing. Before the thrifting social media boom, charity shops homed elderly workers, musty clothes and unfashionable mannequins. If you could afford to go elsewhere, you would never be caught dead in your local charity shop. Now, second-hand is the new norm for growing numbers of fashion consumers. Vinted has become a powerhouse platform in Europe, with others such as eBay and Vestiaire Collective thriving. To compete with increased demand in the second-hand space, charity stores in Britain are hiking up prices; it’s now common to visit your local Oxfam and see a Shein t-shirt being resold for triple the retail price. For these influencers finding such joy and wonder in their thrifting adventures, this is fine, but for those lower working-class families that relied on these stores to cloth themselves, it’s becoming far too much. They are being priced out of their own consumer markets, which were inherently sustainable.

A social media favourite is the phrase “buying second-hand is cheaper than buying fast fashion” It is preached as if it is the gospel and used to shame those who don’t participate. It may seem like a perfectly rational truth, since you’ll see a Primark shirt being resold on Vinted for £2 when it perhaps retailed at £6. But then consider hidden costs, such as buyer protection fees and shipping costs and all of a sudden, your bargain find has shot up to equal or even slightly more than it is in store. Other problems including professional resellers taking over C2C platforms such as Depop, which lost favour with Gen Z when this same issue happened and led to massive price increases on the app. Paired with the issue of charity shops starting to price match the rising figures on these websites, and it starts to become clearer why poorer consumers still turn to fast fashion staples like Shein or Primark.

Having grown up working-class myself and being taught the stigma around shopping second-hand or wearing hand-me-downs, the past five years have been fascinating to see entire consumer groups switch their opinions and begin to shame lower classes for not being “sustainable enough.” When, the truth is that those classes were sustainability practitioners long before it became the popular or correct thing to do. Now, it will be hard to break that learned negative pattern of thinking around those old consumption habits, as they were not fortunate enough to be praised as being sustainable.

Brands and industry leaders now need to bring working-class communities back into the fold of sustainable fashion, instead of alienating them for trying to distance themselves away from stigmatisation. A space needs to be cultivated where marginalised groups are recognised as sustainability innovators and originators, and have their experiences welcomed in leading discussions. Could this be resolved by bringing working-class individuals into more industry positions? Likely. After all, they could teach the industry more about resourcefulness and sustainability than any self-proclaimed influencer expert could.

Words by Jess Cooper