thredUP and Karla Welch team up to combat single-use fashion this festival season

New data from thredUP reveals that nearly 1 in 3 festival shoppers buy outfits they'll only wear once. thredUP enlisted celebrity stylist and activist Karla Welch to encourage consumers to cut the waste by choosing thrifted festival fashion.

March 29, 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 festival shopping experience. The thredUP x Karla Welch festival shop will consist of thrifted looks styled by Karla, as well as items from Karla’s own styling closet -- including some selected for her celebrity clients. Inspired by new data illustrating the fashion waste associated with the return of live music events, this partnership kicks off thredUP’s initiative to inspire consumers to embrace thrift during the most wasteful fashion moments of the year.

“Stylists are the arbiters of taste, dictating what’s cool on the red carpet, in street style, on social media, and beyond. We believe stylists have the power to redefine what’s fashionable, emphasizing circularity and reuse to combat the industry’s wastefulness. We’re thrilled to partner with Karla Welch, one of the industry’s most outspoken and powerful stylists, to inspire others to choose used for the planet.” - Erin Wallace, VP of Integrated Marketing at thredUP

“I love music festivals and I am passionate about promoting sustainability, so thrifting is one of the easiest ways to get a unique, eco-friendly festival look that’ll make you stand out from the crowd. Reusing all the amazing clothes already in existence is one of the best things we can do to reduce our fashion footprint. I’ve loved partnering with thredUP as a styling resource and hope this shop inspires everyone to embrace thrift this festival season and beyond.” - Karla Welch, Celebrity Stylist

The Return of Music Festivals Encourages Consumers to Buy Disposable Fashion

The music industry is set to experience a surge in events.* thredUP’s Festival Fashion survey found that an estimated 1 in 4 people in the U.S. plan to attend a music festival or concert this year.** With Coachella kicking off festival season in April, it’s likely we’ll see a surge in the purchase of outfits for live music events as well. Together, thredUP and Karla hope to give consumers a more sustainable way to shop for festival fashion this year.

Survey Highlights:

Nearly half (42%) of this year’s festival-goers say they plan to buy a new festival outfit. That’s an estimated 26.9M outfits purchased for the return of festival season.
Nearly 1 in 3 festival shoppers say they buy festival outfits that they'll only wear once.
40% of Gen Z say it's unlikely that they will re-wear the outfits purchased for music festivals.
If every festival shopper thrifted their festival outfit this year instead of buying one new, we would save 940M lbs of CO2E, equivalent to taking 564M cars off the road for a day.***

“At thredUP, we are committed to rallying consumers and retailers around solving the root cause of fashion’s waste problem: the overproduction and underutilization of clothing. 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 them in use and out of landfills.” - Erin Wallace, VP of Integrated Marketing at thredUP

Thrift Like a Celebrity Stylist (Sustainably!)

Shoppers can visit thredUP.com/karla to shop Karla’s festival picks and learn more about how quitting single-use fashion and embracing reuse can fight fashion waste.

Shop Karla’s Closet:

Karla is committing to extending the life of her clothes by cleaning out her styling wardrobe with thredUP. She is selling 30+ pieces that consumers can shop to wear to music festivals and beyond. These include items sourced with her celebrity clients in mind! Prices range from $14 to $225.

The Frankie Shop Jumpsuit

“I love this Frankie Shop jumpsuit so much that I am wondering why I am selling it!!! Snatch it up before I change my mind!” - Karla Welch

Awake NY Top

“This Awake top was pulled for a music packaging shoot that was supposed to feel skater-ish - I love it for any gender TBH!” - Karla Welch

Skims Top

“This Skims top was for me for a holiday I didn't take - I'd style it with baggy jeans or even under a suit for a sort of city vibe.” - Karla Welch

Thrift Karla’s Festival Looks:

Karla has also styled eight signature looks fit for festival-goers. Because every piece on thredUP is secondhand and one of a kind, thredUP’s tech makes it easy to shop similar styles to get the look and get styled like a celebrity.

Want more? Customers can text THRIFT to 40272 to receive a special discount code on sustainable festival fashion, and get notified when thredUP's next stylist collab drops.

THREDUP X KARLA WELCH PRESS ASSETS HERE

Sources:

*PricewaterhouseCoopers, Perspectives from the Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2021-2025

**thredUP’s Festival 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.