thredUP and Karla Welch Launch Thrifted Wedding Shop to Combat Single Use Fashion Waste
thredUP x Karla Welch is back, and this time they're tackling wedding fashion waste: With a record number of weddings on the horizon, thredUP enlisted celebrity stylist and activist Karla Welch to encourage consumers to cut the waste by choosing used this wedding season.
May 18, 2022 – thredUP, one of the world’s largest online thrift stores, has partnered with celebrity stylist and activist Karla Welch to launch a one-of-a-kind thrifted wedding shop, complete with outfits for all wedding guest needs. The thredUP x Karla Welch wedding shop will consist of thrifted looks styled by Karla, inspired by her red carpet styling. New data illustrating the fashion waste associated with the return of a record number of weddings this year encouraged thredUP to continue its initiative to inspire consumers to embrace thrift during the most wasteful fashion moments of the year.
“Data shows that consumers are gearing up for a record-setting summer of weddings and are eager to shop for new event outfits they may only wear once. At thredUP, we want to help consumers look and feel great while doing good for the planet, so we were determined to provide a solution. We’re thrilled to tap Karla's styling expertise to help anyone feel red carpet ready without the waste this wedding season.” - Erin Wallace, VP of Integrated Marketing, thredUP
“While I love styling my clients for their finest occasions - from red carpet events to weddings - it can be easy to wear an outfit to a formal event and then never wear it again. That’s why I’ve teamed up with thredUP again to show people how embrace thrifting for formalwear. I hope my wedding shop on thredUP inspires everyone to go thrifting this summer for weddings, graduation parties, bridal showers, you name it!” - Karla Welch, Celebrity Stylist
Get the Red Carpet Look for Less with Karla’s Wedding Edit on thredUP
Shoppers can visit thredUP.com/weddings to shop Karla’s wedding guest outfits and learn more about how quitting single-use fashion and embracing reuse can fight fashion waste. Karla has styled eight signature looks fit for bridal showers, backyard weddings, black-tie affairs, and everything in between. Because every piece on thredUP is secondhand and one of a kind, thredUP’s tech makes it easy to shop similar styles to get styled like a celebrity.
Want more? Customers can text THRIFT to 40272 to receive a special discount code on thrifted dresses, and get notified when thredUP's next collab drops.
A Record Setting Year of Weddings Encourages Consumers to Buy Disposable Fashion
An estimated 2.5 million weddings will take place in the U.S. in 2022, setting a record for the most weddings in nearly 40 years.* thredUP’s Single Use Fashion Survey found that more than one in five millennials say they plan to buy a new outfit for a wedding this year. ** With wedding season upon us, it’s likely we’ll see a surge in the purchase of formalwear outfits this spring and summer. Together, thredUP and Karla hope to give consumers a more sustainable way to shop for their summer of weddings.
Survey Highlights:
More than 1 in 2 consumers say they have purchased new clothing for weddings.
More than 1 in 2 consumers say it's unlikely they will rewear an outfit purchased for a wedding.
More than one in five millennials say they plan to buy a new outfit for a wedding this year.
42M new outfits are expected to be purchased this wedding season: If every consumer thrifted their wedding outfit instead, we'd save more than 1.4B lbs of CO2E, equivalent to more than 51M cars taken off the road for a day.***
Link to download all thredUP x Karla Welch imagery here →
Sources:
*Wedding market research firm, The Wedding Report
**thredUP’s Single Use Fashion Survey: Third-party retail analytics firm GlobalData conducted a survey of 2,000 American adults over 18 in February 2022, asking questions about their shopping behaviors, particularly for events including music festivals and concerts.
***Green Story Inc.
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 Karla Welch:
Karla Welch: CEO, Stylist, and Activist. She has been profiled in many of the world’s foremost journalistic outlets, including the New York Times, the New Yorker, Fast Company, Vogue and Forbes. Karla Welch is CEO and co-CMO of Period., the sustainable period underwear company she co-founded. Period. is a mission based company that focuses on empowering all people who period. Named the most powerful stylist by the Hollywood Reporter, Karla is also one of the world’s most influential fashion stylists as she leads with the guiding principle of dressing her clients to be the best versions of themselves. Karla also has her own brand, x karla, and production company that she shares with her husband and creative partner, Matthew. Together they have brought to life collaborations with brands like Hanes, Levi’s, Eddie Bauer, Express, Adidas, Tiffany & Co., Stella Artois, and Prada. Social justice is the cornerstone of x karla collaborations, the financial success of which has resulted to date in over 1.3 million dollars in contributions to progressive organizations that Karla supports. As a public figure, Karla knows the importance of using her platform to advocate for change. With over 360K IG followers, Karla is continually fighting for and spreading awareness to womxn rights, LGBTQ rights, Trans Rights, birth control, climate change, racial equality, as well as many other other social justice causes.