Fashion for everyone: FFA Thrift Shop brings sustainability to grounds

How a student organization is reviving style and combatting fast fashion at U.Va.

Rachel Fenner / V Mag at UVA

South Lawn, home to the University's Homer Statue and destination of many a streaker, will transform into a bustling thrift shop on Oct. 20th from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Students can search through friends’ closets for the perfect mom jeans, an iconic going-out top or a cozy cable knit. The event offers the University community the chance to give old clothes new life and shop sustainably. 

Futures in Fashion Association (FFA) — a CIO connecting students interested in fashion — hosts the makeshift shop on Grounds once a semester, allowing students to sell clothes they no longer wear. Students can submit clothing to the FFA for a small fee which covers the costs of tagging and the setup of the event. 

FFA then organizes clothing and tags each piece with the student’s Venmo. When attendees of the event decide that they want an item, they Venmo the student directly for it. Any leftover clothing will be donated to Goodwill.

Jojo Moses, FFA co-event chair and third year College student, said the majority of donations fall within the realm of fast fashion, a $122 billion market that dominates the retail industry despite concerns over quality and ethical practices. Fast fashion sites like Shein, Pretty Little Thing and Zara offer temptingly low prices and endless catalogs through a fast production process that often overworks laborers and relies upon cheap manufacturing materials. 

“I see Thrift Shop as giving a second life to clothing that is typically pretty short-lived,” Moses said.  

A recent Forbes article reported that 72 percent of college students bought fast fashion pieces in 2022. The nature of college party culture also fuels students’ desire for these trendy, affordable items, as Julianna Santella, FFA co-president and fourth year College student, noted. 

“You want the next sparkly top, you want to be on the trends,” Santella said. “It's kind of impossible to pick out a really expensive, beautiful, $300 dollar top that's made really well and made sustainably if you're going to wear it once to a frat party and get a beer spilled on it.”  

Since the Thrift Shop’s Fall 2020 debut, organizers have introduced changes to improve the event. This year, the FFA is capping the amount of items at 600 — a decrease from the 2,000 offered last year — to streamline the process and to make sure that desirable, quality items are sold. Furthermore, keeping the event smaller will protect against the theft seen during last year’s event.

“We're hoping to make it a little bit neater and easier to shop as well as having a rope barricade and some security this year,” Moses said. 

Additionally, when starting her position of co-events chair last fall, Moses partnered with Goodwill to begin donating leftover clothes as an extra environmentally-friendly practice.

Rachel Fenner / V Mag at UVA

Thrift Shop not only promotes sustainability, but also presents an opportunity for students to buy fun and inspired clothing to spice up their closet at a reasonable price. Grayson Miller, FFA co-events chair and third-year Architecture student, said this goal is especially important at a school where fashion is not most students' priority. 

“It seems like everywhere you turn, someone's in athleisure,” Miller said. “At the moment, [promoting fashion] is kind of a big goal of ours and also obviously a big challenge, just because breaking through those stigmas and the social pressure of being in a place this big with such defined aesthetics — you could say it's kind of difficult.”

Because the FFA Thrift Shop offers student clothing, Miller said he hopes students will feel comfortable buying these pieces and will find more exciting items than in a typical thrift store. 

Although the bi-annual Thrift Shop is FFA's biggest event, the group stays busy throughout the year. Speaker events feature fashion industry heads from corporations like Bibpty and Steve Madden, who offer their insight to students. FFA also offers social events, including the recent Wine and Thrift Social, where students were encouraged to thrift with a group of friends and then come together for snacks. 

While FFA was originally geared towards providing students interested in working in the fashion industry with work opportunities and industry connections, it has evolved over time. 

“Now, it's more so about just connecting students who have any kind of passion or interest in fashion,” Santella said.

The Futures in Fashion Association is steadily making strides on University Grounds by combating fast fashion and encouraging students to express themselves through their clothing.

“Fashion is fun, and fashion is for everyone, no matter what that is like and how that looks like for you,” Santella said. “Fashion just should be a way for everyone to get to a different form of self expression, [even though] those outlets are [sometimes] limited in college … It's something that we really want to emphasize with our club.”