ThredUP Teams With Celebrity Stylist Karla Welch To Mitigate Waste During Festival Season

ThreadUP has partnered with celebrity stylist and activist Karla Welch in an effort to wrap its proverbial hands around the massive nearly 27 million looks in total that are bought to outfit music lovers during festival season each year.

“I think people are catching on to how amazing secondhand clothing can be, not only because it’s affordable and sustainable, but because it’s an amazing way to develop great personal style,” said Welch.

ThredUP and Welch on March 29, launched the thredUP x Karla Festival Shop filled with thrifted looks styled by Welch, which will be available on an ongoing basis, as well as items from her own styling closet – including some pieces she selected for her celebrity clients. (Expect those to sell out quickly.)

Prices range from $14 to $225.99, for brands including Skims, Birkenstocks, Levis x Denim Tears, and more. The goal of the partnership is to kick off thredUP’s initiative to inspire consumers to embrace thrift during one of the most style-conscious, but wasteful fashion moments of the year – festival season.

The partnership was inspired by new data from thredUP and its third-party data firm, whose research informs the thrift site’s annual Resale Report, and polled American users, illustrating the fashion waste associated with the return of music festivals. Survey highlights include:

• Nearly half (42%) of this year’s festival-goers said they plan to buy a new festival outfit. That’s an estimated 26.9 million outfits purchased for the return of festival season.
• Nearly one in three festival shoppers said they buy festival outfits that they’ll only wear once.
• 40% of Gen Z said it’s unlikely that they will re-wear outfits purchased for music festivals.

“At thredUP, we’re committed to rallying consumers and retailers around solving the root cause of fashion’s waste problem, the overproduction and underutilization of clothing,” said Erin Wallace, Vice President of Integrated Marketing at thredUP. “We believe widespread reuse is an important step toward a more sustainable future for fashion. Buying used clothing over new makes the most of the natural resources used to produce clothing, keeping it in use and out of landfills.”

Key styles include lots of denim, such as cut-off shorts, items with fringe and neon-colored apparel.

This isn’t thredUP’s first stylist partnership. For example, its most recent stylist collaboration was with Molly Rogers and Danny Santiago, the costume designers for “And Just Like That,” the reboot of “Sex and the City.”

ThredUP is trying to cut down on the impact of single-use events such as festivals, weddings and Christmas by educating consumers about thrift. With Welch’s help, thredUP will keep more clothes in circulation.