BRITTANY LUSE, HOST:
Hello, hello. I’m Brittany Luse, and you’re listening to IT’S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR, a show about what’s going on in culture and why it doesn’t happen by accident.
(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO, “I GOT RID OF (ALMOST) EVERYTHING”)
EMMA CHAMBERLAIN: Two or three months ago, I went into my closet to do my routine purge, attempted it and failed many times. But this last time, it actually worked.
VERONIQUE HYLAND: Emma Chamberlain, who’s one of the biggest influencers – she became known in part for her thrift hauls. And she just threw out 95% of her wardrobe.
LUSE: That is Veronique Hyland…
HYLAND: Thank you for having me.
LUSE: …Fashion features director at Elle and author of “Dress Code: Unlocking Fashion From The New Look To Millennial Pink.” She’s followed online fashion trends from mob wives to Vera Bradley’s TikTok revival. And after watching Emma Chamberlain’s closet cleanout, she noticed the latest shift in online fashion – underconsumption.
HYLAND: I was seeing people sometimes refer to it as underconsumption core. And I thought, well, this is something that a lot of people have been doing for a long time because there are people who are doing No-Buy January or even no-buy years. And then there are sort of more low-buy or shop your closet, as we called it during the recession.
LUSE: According to McKinsey & Company, from 2000 to 2014, clothing production doubled, and the number of garments purchased per capita increased by about 60%. That’s in part due to the rise of fast fashion. And now some consumers are seeing the fallout of that.
HYLAND: People have remarked that there’s been an overall decline in clothing quality or that when they’re getting vintage pieces – even sometimes from a specific brand – the quality is better than the newer. And people talking about relying on natural fibers like wool and cotton more, looking at tags very closely to see if things will last.
LUSE: At the time of our chat, we wondered if the shift would stick in the post-New Year’s resolution shuffle. It’s no secret that Americans are deeply concerned about the economy, and there are numerous concerns about what fast fashion is doing to the environment. But that hasn’t stopped the rise of places like Shein or Temu. However, there’s one other piece of the puzzle that may influence the way we buy.
HYLAND: It’ll be interesting to see how potential tariffs impact all of this if things get even more expensive, because there have been rumblings about that in both fashion and beauty and obviously other realms, too. I wonder if that’ll push people more towards either secondhand or lower-priced alternatives.
(SOUNDBITE OF BLUE DOT SESSIONS’ “DIAMOND HIGH”)
LUSE: I chatted with Veronique in January right before President Trump took office. And since then, we’ve seen that Trump has decided to go forward with imposing tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico and China. So now you might be wondering, what does that have to do with underconsumption? Actually, what does that have to do with fashion at all? Well, everything.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
WAILIN WONG, BYLINE: What’s really kind of remarkable about this current trade war that we’re finding ourselves in is that it’s so broad, right? It means that a huge amount of stuff that we kind of take for granted is going to be affected. And, you know, that includes clothing and includes footwear, includes handbags, you know, the stuff that makes the consumer economy run, you know?
LUSE: That’s NPR’s very own Wailin Wong from The Indicator. I want to make sure everyone’s clear. A tariff is a tax that American businesses or consumers pay on imported goods from overseas. So as tariffs on goods from China or Mexico go up, our prices go up. But then you have to ask, if our prices are going to go up, why is the Trump administration doing this in the first place?
WONG: The economic rationale for tariffs is typically that it is meant to stimulate domestic production or protect a domestic industry. So basically, as Chinese steel or Mexican avocados or whatever get more expensive because of tariffs, American shoppers will turn to American businesses for those things. The problem with this rationale, especially as it applies to clothing or apparel, is that the U.S. is not making clothing on a scale that you could argue is sufficient to satisfy current demand.
LUSE: So that made me wonder, how is fashion – especially fast fashion – going to hold up during this turbulent time?
WONG: Let’s say a shirt goes from $6 to $7. For some shoppers, that might make a difference. For others, it might not because you’re still looking at a shirt that’s under $10, right?
LUSE: Or will the overwhelming effect of tariffs cause shoppers to cut their losses and follow the underconsumption model of thrifting, mending and secondhand finds?
WONG: People were already having trouble affording groceries and eggs and all the rest of it. And when you think about if our produce from Mexico and Canada get more expensive, that does potentially cut into people’s discretionary budgets around stuff like clothing.
LUSE: Today on the show, Wailin helps break down how tariffs will affect Americans and what these taxes can reveal about who’s actually footing the bills in this country.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
WONG: You know, what’s interesting is that this is not our first go-around with tariffs under Trump. He also did a version of this trade war when he was president the first time, although it wasn’t quite as extreme and chaotic as this current round has been. And I think that the bigger response we’ve seen from the business community from, you know, apparel makers, et cetera, in response to tariffs has been to move production to countries where there aren’t tariffs. So I think that is the bigger business move that you’ve seen.
LUSE: So perhaps moving your production center out of China, out of Mexico, out of Canada.
WONG: Exactly. So Shein, which, you know, has really popped up in the last few years…
LUSE: Yeah.
WONG: …As, like, a huge purveyor of extremely cheap clothing from China – Shein has been shifting production to countries like Brazil and Turkey.
LUSE: Oh.
WONG: And so these are the kinds of work-arounds you’re seeing from especially a lot of apparel or fast fashion companies is looking for production in countries that are not going to be tariffed. And so – and sometimes even rerouting shipments in this kind of, like, circuitous way. So when it comes into the U.S., it’s coming in from a place that’s not tariffed.
LUSE: Jeez. I mean, I imagine it’s less complicated for a much larger company to make a big change like that than perhaps a smaller one.
WONG: Oh, absolutely. Like, for example, Zara’s CEO was recently asked, what do you make of all this uncertainty from the tariffs? And the CEO said, basically, we can adapt because we have production in 50 countries, right? So…
LUSE: Wow.
WONG: …This is a CEO of Zara’s parent company.
LUSE: Right.
WONG: So they’re a massive corporation – production in 50 countries – as opposed to a, let’s say, medium-sized business owner who’s like, OK, well, it’s going to cost a huge amount of money and a huge logistical headache to even find a new factory within China or moving from China to Vietnam, let’s say.
LUSE: Jeez, jeez. OK. You know, and something else that matters is also where the goods are from. For this episode, we also spoke with fashion law professor and author Susan Scafidi, who gave us an example. Thinking about, let’s say, for example, designer shoes from Italy, they would be subject to a lesser tariff than, say, you know, an everyday household item that, you know, a middle- or working-class parent might pick up on Amazon or at Walmart that’s made in China. Is this another way of widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots if you’re thinking about who’s tending to buy luxury goods that are from, you know, these countries that are not currently being tariffed versus who may not have the wiggle room to be able to seek out products that aren’t from these now heavily tariffed countries?
WONG: Oh, for sure. I mean, apparel and clothing – this is a category where you have lots of price segments. Someone who is in the market for a luxury handbag – you know, Hermes, Gucci, whatever – you know, if, let’s say, the U.S. puts tariffs on the European Union, which is something that Trump is in the process of doing, then luxury fashion would be affected. But if you were already going to pay $10,000 for a handbag from Italy, do you care if the price goes up to $11,000?
LUSE: Right.
WONG: Or are you just going to pay it, and it’s not really a big deal? Whereas let’s say you’re used to shopping from Zara or Target or Shein or something, and let’s say the price of a shirt goes from $6 to $8 or $6 to $10 or something…
LUSE: To $12 or something. Yeah.
WONG: …I mean, depending on your budget, that might be a no-go for you, right? So in economics, you talk about the, you know, elasticity of demand, and how much does it change in response to movements in prices? For luxury items, demand is generally considered elastic. Basically, a person’s demand for luxury goods expands and contracts based on how much money they have to spend. That’s different than their demand for a necessity like food or utilities. But for people on the really high end of the income spectrum, they’re not price sensitive. So their demand for luxury goods can be inelastic, meaning they keep buying this stuff even if prices go up.
LUSE: OK, OK. So back to President Trump. When he was reelected, there was already some preparation from the fashion industry in anticipation of the tariffs that he may propose. Now that we’re here – right? – the tariffs are in effect, how have fashion retailers, particularly in fast fashion, reacted to this?
WONG: Well, you know, what’s interesting is we had this strange little experiment around something called the de minimis loophole. Do you know what this is?
LUSE: No. I don’t know anything about it.
WONG: OK. So this relates to tariffs because there’s this long-standing loophole where shipments worth under $800 are allowed into the U.S. duty-free, no taxes. And this saves Shein and Temu millions of dollars. They have taken full advantage of this wiggle room, and that’s one reason why their clothing is so cheap for American consumers. It’s because there’s this loophole that allows their shipments to come in duty-free because it’s always under this threshold. Now, in February, Trump tried to close this loophole.
LUSE: Oh.
WONG: And so in response, Temu raised prices on its website. Like, people who shop on Temu or people who are monitoring the website for – in effect, saw the prices go up basically, like, right away after Trump announced that he was closing this loophole. Then there was this whole thing where he was like, never mind. We’re not closing the loophole. I’m going to ask the Commerce Department to set up a system to process and inspect all these shipments. So now the loophole is back in effect. And so that means that the stuff from Shein and Temu can still come in duty-free because of this threshold. But this is something that affects fast fashion companies like Shein and Temu in a way that would not affect a luxury clothing maker.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LUSE: Coming up…
WONG: What if people are responding to higher prices for clothing by saying, you know what? I’m not going to give away my clothes like I used to or try to sell them secondhand. That’s potentially taking supply out of the secondhand market. And then if you have more demand for secondhand clothing – ’cause people are looking for cheaper clothing – and less supply, then that means that prices for secondhand goods could also rise.
LUSE: …How tariffs could affect the secondhand market.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LUSE: So I wonder, like, is there a world in which these tariffs affect the way that fast fashion has been able to develop in the past few years?
WONG: It’s hard to say, right? But then you think about it in the context of this bigger cost-of-living crisis that is, you know, potentially in the offing. I mean, people were already having trouble affording groceries and eggs and all the rest of it.
LUSE: Yeah.
WONG: And when you think about the rest of the tariffs that are in effect and if our produce from Mexico and Canada get more expensive and if, you know, the cost of all these other products that we’ve come to rely on become more expensive, you know, that does potentially cut into people’s discretionary budgets around stuff like clothing, right? Like, if I can’t afford groceries, I’m not at the mall.
LUSE: You’re not at the mall. Yeah (laughter).
WONG: I’m not at the mall buying a new outfit for the weekend.
LUSE: Yeah.
WONG: I am saving my pennies because I need to be able to buy milk, you know?
LUSE: But the thing about these tariffs, though, is that they’re not applied equally to all goods. In researching for this episode, our producer Alexis found that, you know, this depends on lots of things – like, for instance, gender. Like, in the U.S. – as far as we know, the U.S. is the only country that has gender-based tariffs on clothing, meaning womenswear has higher tariffs than menswear.
WONG: Yes. And, you know, what’s interesting is I saw something from the World Bank that found a couple other countries that also do a version of this. I think the World Bank mentioned Botswana, South Africa. But the U.S. is a very prominent example of an economy that does gender-based tariffs. And an example of this is a men’s jacket that comes from overseas might get taxed – ’cause remember, a tariff is a tax that we pay as the consumer – a men’s jacket might get taxed at 8.5%. And a women’s jacket of, you know, comparable type category, whatever, will get taxed at 14%. So it’s…
LUSE: Oh, my gosh. That’s almost twice as much.
WONG: So it’s a difference. Yeah.
LUSE: Yeah.
WONG: And there was – Texas A&M University did a study that they published in 2015 that found that on average, the tax for imported women’s clothing is three percentage points higher than imported men’s clothing.
LUSE: Wow.
WONG: So that does make a pretty big difference if you think about what your budget for new…
LUSE: What?
WONG: …Clothing purchases might be. And if you think about, you know, maybe you’re working in a profession where you as a woman do not make as much as a man working the…
LUSE: Yeah.
WONG: …Same job. So now it’s this double whammy where you’re not earning as much and your stuff costs more because of these gender-based tariffs.
LUSE: Gosh, gosh. OK, so that makes me wonder, though, how the secondhand and vintage reseller market will be affected by these tariffs. The resale market has been hot for years. And, you know, if there’s this idea that consumers are moving toward more sustainable practices or even just this idea that consumers need to, perhaps, save money for other reasons, I wonder how the secondhand market will adjust to all of this.
WONG: That is something that I’m really fascinated to see, too, because I feel like there are a couple of kind of countervailing forces here. There’s a few dynamics that I’m not sure how they’re going to play out. One is the dynamic of, you know, are people going to stop buying new clothing and turn to the secondhand market even more than maybe they’ve already been doing? So on one hand, you might see demand go up for secondhand clothing. On the other hand, what if people are responding to higher prices for clothing by saying, you know what? I’m not going to give away my clothes like I used to or try to sell them secondhand. I’m going to hang on to them for longer. Let me see if I can make my sweater last for another season. That’s potentially taking supply out of the secondhand market.
LUSE: I didn’t even…
WONG: And then if you have…
LUSE: …Think about that.
WONG: …More demand for secondhand clothing – ’cause people are looking for cheaper clothing – and less supply, then that means that prices for secondhand goods could also rise. Now…
LUSE: Dang.
WONG: …Are they going to rise so much that that, then, creates kind of an affordability problem for people who really need to be shopping secondhand ’cause they can’t afford to buy new? I don’t know. It’s like, this is what’s so (laughter) complicated about trying to game out the impact of these tariffs. And it’s like, that kind of uncertainty ripples throughout the entire economy.
LUSE: My gosh. I mean, I had anticipated that the demand for secondhand items could go up. But I hadn’t even thought that there could be a possibility that the demand for them may go down. I wonder, who are secondhand shoppers, or, like, is it a niche market, or is this group going – I mean, I know that there’s a variety of motivations for why people shop secondhand. Some people it’s cost. Some people it’s preference. Some people it’s sustainability or looking for something specific. Some people are, like, vintage collectors. But I wonder, like – I don’t know – who makes up this group?
WONG: I think that from what I’ve heard and read, your resell shopper, your thrifter, falls into kind of two broad categories. From what I’ve heard and read, thrift store shoppers tend to fall into two broad categories. One is the shopper that needs to shop secondhand because they’re looking for a more affordable alternative. This is kind of where their budget is. And then there’s a second category of shopper that’s hunting for something trendy or unique. Now, this group also includes people who are looking for a cool find that they can flip and resell, and that’s an activity that’s gotten pretty big. You might even notice this if you go to your local Goodwill or something.
Like, we have out by me – I live outside Chicago. And further out in the Chicago suburbs – you have to kind of drive kind of far out – there’s a Goodwill Outlet store, which is, like, the Goodwill of Goodwills. It’s, like, where the stuff goes that, like, didn’t sell in, like, the regular Goodwill. And it is, like, total chaos. I mean, it’s just these, like, huge tables. Nothing is folded. It – and it’s all – like, every size is just, like, dumped on a big table. And then you just kind of…
LUSE: Yeah.
WONG: …Like, go spelunking in these, like, big messy tables.
LUSE: (Laughter).
WONG: And the one time I went to the Goodwill Outlet, it was so interesting because you could see who the professionals were. You know, you could see the people who were – they would position themselves by a table when the new stuff was coming out, and then you could see they were just laser focused. They were looking for whatever, like, Jordans or, you know, like, they knew which brands to look for.
LUSE: They weren’t just there to – like, to hang out. They weren’t just there to see what was around.
WONG: They were there, like, on a mission. You can tell they’re, like, looking for specific brands they’ve researched. They know exactly what will sell, you know? So now you have people who, like, for budget reasons need to be shopping at a store like that – they’re competing against people who are doing this for, like, a side hustle or maybe their main hustle.
LUSE: Wow, wow, wow. I wonder, you know, when people can’t afford either vintage or secondhand, higher-quality goods or the kinds of goods that you want to purchase – maybe that you can hold on to them for a little while because they are, you know, made pretty well…
WONG: Yeah.
LUSE: …Will they eventually turn back to the Shein hauls (laughter), you know, that we’ve seen before? Like, is this a cycle that we’ve seen before?
WONG: That’s interesting. I mean, I think the Shein of it all is definitely a wild card that is new, right? Like, I think, like, the introduction of fast fashion, that was definitely new, and Shein has kind of supercharged that because the prices…
LUSE: Yeah.
WONG: …Are even lower than a Zara or an H&M.
LUSE: Sure.
WONG: And it’s, like, this cultural mindset shift that they engendered, where you just don’t feel satisfied with what you have. You’re told these clothes no longer suit you because no one’s wearing them anymore. You have to get all new stuff. And so you think about how entrenched that idea is in the mind of many an American consumer, and I think that’s a pretty powerful thing to have to fight against. It seems very difficult in my mind to put that kind of toothpaste back in the tube, you know? Like, or are you going to get enough conscientious consumers who are like, OK, I’m going to deprogram myself from this mindset that I need new stuff all the time? I think it’s hard. I think it’s really hard.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LUSE: Gosh, Wailin, thank you so much for coming on. It was so great to talk to you. I learned so much.
WONG: Oh, I had a blast. Thanks for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LUSE: That was Wailin Wong from NPR’s The Indicator. And thanks again to Veronique Hyland.
This episode of IT’S BEEN A MINUTE was produced by…
ALEXIS WILLIAMS, BYLINE: Alexis Williams.
LUSE: This episode was edited by…
NEENA PATHAK, BYLINE: Neena Pathak.
LUSE: Our supervising producer is…
BARTON GIRDWOOD, BYLINE: Barton Girdwood.
LUSE: Our executive producer is…
VERALYN WILLIAMS, BYLINE: Veralyn Williams.
LUSE: Our VP of programming is…
YOLANDA SANGWENI, BYLINE: Yolanda Sangweni.
LUSE: All right. That’s all for this episode of IT’S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR. I’m Brittany Luse. Talk soon.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.