thredUP and Madewell Launch A First of Its Kind Circular Shopping Experience

This IRL store is entirely stocked with secondhand clothes, and offers a glimpse into how clothing reuse can shift our collective mindset to fight fashion waste and power a more circular future.

September 23, 2021 -- thredUP, one of the world's largest online resale platforms, and premium denim brand Madewell today announced the launch of ‘A Circular Store’, a unique physical shopping experience in Williamsburg, Brooklyn featuring secondhand Madewell pieces sourced from thredUP and designed to educate consumers on the power of making clothes to last and why keeping them in use is important. The store is a limited edition extension of the online Madewell Forever denim resale experience that launched in July, and marks the first time customers can shop a full assortment of preloved Madewell, mend and tailor clothes, and pass them on responsibly -- all in one place.

“For too long, the fashion industry has operated with a linear, disposable model. We’ve designed a store to represent the future of fashion -- a circular future in which retailers design for longevity, and consumers shop with resale in mind. Our hope is that visitors will leave inspired and armed with the knowledge they need to take a more sustainable approach to their wardrobes. We believe that retail and resale working together is a necessary next step in achieving our vision of a circular future for fashion.”-- Erin Wallace, VP of Integrated Marketing at thredUP

The Future of Fashion is Preloved

This continuation of thredUP and Madewell’s ongoing partnership offers a glimpse into what a more circular future for fashion could look like, if we all reused more and discarded less.

The fashion industry is on track to consume 26% of the world’s carbon budget by 2050, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. To meaningfully reduce the impact of fashion on the planet, thredUP and Madewell believe that the future of fashion must shift from a linear model to a more circular one. Together, they’re demonstrating how we can change the way we buy, wear and care for our clothes to fight fashion waste, building a model of what the future of fashion can look like for consumers and other retailers to follow.

“The fashion industry wasn't built with sustainability in mind, but with the future of our planet at stake, we collectively must do better. At Madewell, we make quality products designed for longevity and are doubling down on solutions that keep clothing in circulation as long as possible and reduce apparel waste. We are thrilled to partner with thredUP to unveil this store concept to take the first steps toward creating a blueprint for other retailers to follow as they integrate circularity into their business model. We’re honored to continue working hand in hand with thredUP to help the fashion industry make strides towards circularity.” -- Liz Hershfield, SVP, Head of Sustainability at Madewell

How ‘A Circular Store’ is Different

This store is designed to challenge the definition of a traditional retail store, aimed at extending the life cycle of clothing.

100% secondhand Madewell clothes sourced from thredUP. Every time you shop used instead of new, you reduce carbon emissions by 82%, according to thredUP’s 2021 Resale Report and research from Green Story Inc. This is the first-ever store filled entirely with hundreds of preloved Madewell styles from thredUP, with prices ranging from $10-40.
Education is at the forefront. A shocking 36 billion apparel items end up in landfills every year. As customers visit each of the three shoppable stations in the store, they learn about three steps that will bring us closer to a circular future for fashion.
In-store mending station. Repairing one item of clothing a season saves 19lbs of carbon annually.

Clean out to close the loop. 95% of the clothing thrown away in the U.S. annually could be recycled or reused. To date, thredUP has processed over 125M articles of clothing, displacing an estimated 2.2B lbs of C02. That's the equivalent of 117K flights around the world.
Circular packaging. Reused is the new reusable. An organic cotton bag should be reused 150 times based on their environmental production cost, according to a 2018 study by the Ministry of Environment and Food of Denmark.

Digital and physical integration. QR codes at each station offer a deeper dive into how to buy, wear, care, and pass on your clothes for the planet.
Programming that speaks to the future of fashion. The shop will be home to educational programming with local designers and sustainable brands, including upcycling and repair workshops with Patagonia's Worn Wear team.

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This will be the first time that shoppers can access all preloved Madewell categories beyond denim, expanding to dresses, jackets, sweaters, tees, and more.

Visitors can bring their own clothes that are in need of TLC to get them expertly repaired on-site, or tailor clothes purchased in store for the perfect fit.

For this store, thredUP and Madewell reused old Madewell tote bags and screen printed over the previous designs to ensure no packaging materials would be created net new or wasted. thredUP Clean Out Kits will be also available in store to help consumers keep clothes in use and out of landfills.

QR codes at each station offer a deeper dive into how to buy, wear, care, and pass on your clothes for the planet.

Located at 89 N. 6th Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, ‘A Circular Store’ opened to the public on Thursday, September 23rd, and will remain open through October 31st. Click here for more information including programming calendar.

[10/1 Update: The shop will remain open through November 7th!]

More details on Madewell Forever

Launched in July 2021, Madewell Forever is Madewell’s resale program powered by thredUP’s Resale-as-a-ServiceⓇ (RaaSⓇ), the tech platform that promotes circular fashion experiences for brands and retailers. Madewell is thredUP’s first RaaSⓇ client to launch a 360-resale platform, allowing their community to both clean out their closets and shop secondhand. With Madewell Forever, the two brands aim to extend the life of each recirculated garment by 2X, and are working towards a goal of collecting 1M pairs of denim by 2023 through Madewell Forever, which is twice as much as what Madewell has collected over the last six years through their denim trade-in program. Read more here.

About thredUP

About thredUP: thredUP is transforming resale with technology and a mission to inspire a new generation of consumers to think secondhand first. By making it easy to buy and sell secondhand, thredUP has become one of the world’s largest resale platforms for women’s and kids’ apparel, shoes and accessories. Sellers love thredUP because we make it easy to clean out their closets and unlock value for themselves or for the charity of their choice while doing good for the planet. Buyers love shopping value, premium and luxury brands all in one place, at up to 90% off estimated retail price. Our proprietary operating platform is the foundation for our managed marketplace and consists of distributed processing infrastructure, proprietary software and systems and data science expertise. In 2018, we extended our platform with Resale-as-a-ServiceⓇ (RaaSⓇ), which facilitates modern resale for a number of the world’s leading brands and retailers. thredUP has processed over 125 million unique secondhand items from 35,000 brands across 100 categories. By extending the life cycle of clothing, thredUP is changing the way consumers shop and ushering in a more sustainable future for the fashion industry.

About Madewell

Madewell is a part of the J.Crew Group, which operates 145 Madewell stores nationwide and madewell.com, as of July 20, 2021. The brand is a community-driven denim destination for women and men that champions creativity, inclusivity, and self-expression. With denim at their core, Madewell also offers all the tenets of a great wardrobe, from easy tees and timeless outerwear to classic footwear and last-forever bags. Beyond impeccably designed products, Madewell also distinguishes itself through a number of meaningful sustainability initiatives, a best-in-class customer loyalty program, and community-driven initiatives including Hometown Heroes and Labels We Love.