I'm on a visual journey through America's collective closets.
(We need your pledges.....only 10 more states to go until the project is complete!)
Every purchase we make is a choice.
We vote with each dollar we spend. New or used? Expensive or cheap? Designer or bobo? Serious or fun? No matter what we buy, it all ends up somewhere when we're done with it. And that's why I decided to start All Thrifty States.
I believe thrift stores offer up a window to into our collective closets that are laboratories to discover more about ourselves. I hope that by visiting thrift stores in every state, I might be better able to understand America as a nation, the diversity of people that live here and find some fun stuff along the way.
When we purchase something that’s used, ultimately we’re saving it from a landfill and making a conscious choice to lower the amount of natural resources we collectively demand. With today’s focus on our planet’s limited resources and a financial crisis that has hit all of us, it seems counterintuitive to continue the consumerism that’s pushed our credit cards to the max and our economy to the brink of collapse. Does anyone really care that you paid $3 for your Ann Taylor shirt? They won’t even know unless you tell them. Do you really need a handbag that costs as much as a car? No! Humans survived for millions of years without department stores, boutiques or purses that cost more than a car. And you can too.
I see the future as a bright place where trends may come and go but people dress as they please in what suits them best, looks good in their eyes and makes them feel good-- no matter where it comes from.
By starting this part journalism, part photography, part cultural study, part art documentary project, I hope to do two things.
- Bring attention to our nation's spending habits and the pointless nature of most of it. After all, if we didn’t buy so much stuff we didn’t need, thrift stores would cease to exist.
- Learn more about America's communities through all the things they once owned. Are they religious? Are they active? Are they diverse? What do they use in their everyday lives? There's a distinct variation of items sold in each locality where you thrift and it can say a lot about the donating community that surrounds it.
I hope a lot of you reading this might take a minute to discover ways to live closer to the ground and see how rewarding, easy, cheap and AMAZINGLY fashionable it can be.
-Jenna