To help Gen Z quit fast fashion, thredUP is arming Sofia and nine other influencers with thredUP’s AI tool, What they Thrifted, to make shopping their thrifted picks possible at scale.

July 12, 2023 – thredUP, one of the world’s largest online resale platforms, has partnered with High School Musical star Sofia Wylie to launch Get Ready With Us: Back-to-School Edition - a curated secondhand storefront to help consumers thrift for back-to-school. The shop was inspired by thredUP’s 2023 Back-to-School Survey*, which found that more than 60% of college students want to shop more sustainably for clothes this year.

Sofia Wylie is Quitting Ultra Fast Fashion this Back-to-School Season and Wants You to Join Her:

A multihyphenate at just 19 years old, Sofia knows a thing or two about dressing for many occasions. From being on set to going to school, Sofia has felt the pressure to always be seen in a new outfit. That’s why she’s pledging to give up ultra-fast fashion this fall and inspiring her fans to do the same. Together with thredUP, her storefront will give shoppers a unique way to get this season’s hottest back-to-school trends without the waste.

“When I first started working on film sets, I became obsessed with testing out looks that help me express myself in new ways. That’s why I love thrifting. Shopping secondhand allows me to experiment with my style and find pieces that are new to me without contributing to fashion waste. I’m so excited to give people the chance to shop my thredUP haul just in time for back-to-school. I truly believe that if we all change our shopping habits just a little, it can have a big impact on the planet. So join me, and get thrifting!!” - Sofia Wylie

Get Ready With Us: Back-to-School Edition

The Get Ready With Us shop is thredUP’s largest back-to-school shop to date. Filled with thousands of styles, the shop aims to give consumers an easy way to thrift their way back to campus. 

Get Ready With Us showcases the hundreds of items that Sofia and nine other influencers thrifted on thredUP this summer and uses thredUP’s What they Thrifted tool to surface thousands of close matches from thredUP’s inventory – giving consumers endless ways to score back-to-school looks.

What The Back-to-School Lineup Thrifted:

thredUP’s What they Thrifted tool gives influencers a turnkey way to promote their one-of-a-kind thrifted finds. Influencers typically promote items that their audiences can directly shop. thredUP’s What They Thrifted tool, on the other hand, gives thrifters a peek into what an influencer bought for themself and offers up thousands of similar items to shop – across sizes, brands and price points. The result is a vast shopping experience that gives consumers a curated way of thrifting based on their favorite influencer’s thrifted finds. 

Starting today, consumers can shop Get Ready With Us: Back-to-School Edition at thredup.com/backtoschool to score a unique back-to-school wardrobe that matches their favorite influencer’s style.

“There is no doubt that influencers have impacted people’s fashion habits for quite some time. With the trend cycles continuing to speed up, we believe influencers and celebrities have an even greater responsibility to help people make educated choices about what they buy and wear. In fact, thredUP’s latest survey found that nearly half of college students say that when they don’t know what trends to buy and wear, they look to their favorite influencers. Historically, it’s been challenging for influencers to promote secondhand fashion because everything is one-of-a-kind. With thredUP’s What they Thrifted tool, we’re excited to give some of the biggest fashion influencers a turnkey way to promote a more sustainable way to shop this back-to-school season.” - Erin Wallace, VP of Marketing, thredUP

Shop Eva Meloche’s Back-to-School Style:

Shop Nia Sioux’s Back-to-School Style: 

Shop Evelyn Ha’s Back-to-School Style:

Shop Sydney Serena’s Back-to-School Style:

Shop Erica Ha’s Back-to-School Style: 

Shop Kate Brock’s Back-to-School Style:

Shop Linh Truong’s Back-to-School Style: 

Shop Bailey Dedrick’s Back-to-School Style:

Shop Amelie Desai’s Back-to-School Style:

thredUP’s Back-to-School Survey* found that more than 1 in 2 college students would like to see their favorite influencers commit to promoting more sustainable brands.

thredUP’s second annual Gen Z survey conducted with GlobalData revealed that young consumers continue to feel hooked on fast fashion and want to shop more sustainably this back-to-school season. Survey highlights include:

Back-to-school means a lot more shopping: 

• Nearly 60% of high school and college students plan to buy new clothes for this back-to-school season.

• More than half of Gen Z expect to buy 6 or more new apparel items this back-to-school season. 

• Nearly half of Gen Z want to buy secondhand clothes for this back-to-school season.

Fast fashion addiction continues to afflict Gen Z…

• 36% Gen Z say they feel addicted to fast fashion.

• Nearly half of college students say it's hard to resist the temptation that fast fashion offers. 

• 66% of Gen Z say they have shopped from fast fashion brands in the past year.

• More than 1 in 4 Gen Z say they shop fast fashion weekly or more.

• 41% of college students scroll fast fashion sites/apps once a day or more.

• More than half of college students watch fast fashion hauls on social media weekly or more.

…and they’re still trying to quit fast fashion and embrace more sustainable habits:

• Nearly half of Gen Z say they would like to quit shopping fast fashion or shop it less.

• The number 1 reason Gen Z want to quit or cut back on shopping fast fashion is because they want to shop more sustainably and ethically.

Influencers play a role in driving Gen Z’s fashion habits: 

• 43% of college students say when they don’t know what trends to buy and wear, they look to their favorite influencers. 

• Nearly half of Gen Z say that social media and influencer marketing influences what they choose to buy. 

• More than 1 in 5 Gen Z say that the majority of the fashion they purchase was discovered through an influencer.

If every Gen Z swapped one new apparel purchase for a thrifted one this back-to-school season, we could collectively save more than 580M lbs of C02e. That's equivalent to taking more than 20M cars off the road for a day.**

Sofia’s Tips for Thrifting the Best Back-to-School Finds

“What I love most about thrifting on thredUP is there are more than 55,000 brands across so many categories, so there really is something for all of my moods and any occasion! Here are my top tips for finding the best pieces on thredUP:

1. Save your sizes: The first thing you should do on thredUP is save your sizes to find one of a kind gems that work for you. I also like to include a size or two bigger than my usual size when browsing, if I want a more oversized fit or to account for known sizing inconsistencies across brands. Measurements are great to look at as well! 

2. Start with your favorite brands: Start with a brand you’re familiar with! You can save a search and set an alert for items from it if it's not a super common brand. Or just type it into the search filter. Some of my favorite brands right now are: J.Crew, Aerie, Current/Elliott, and Reformation. 

3. Try out some trends by experimenting with the sub-category filters!: My favorite trends on thredUP include low rise jeans (sorry to high-waisted fans!), sweater vests, and structured totes for a more polished look. 

4. Never hit snooze on an item you love: If I really love an item, I act quickly, because chances are someone else will too! And there's only one of everything! If I need more time to decide, then I favorite the items I like so I can review them all in one place. 

5. Auto-Buy: If I find an item I LOVE, but it’s in someone else’s cart, I click auto-buy, and the item will be mine the second it becomes available!”

*thredUP’s Back-to-School Survey: Third-party retail analytics firm GlobalData conducted a survey of 1,992 American Gen Z (ages 16-26) in June 2023, asking questions about their shopping behaviors this back-to-school season, as well as their relationship with and perception of fast fashion. 

**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 online resale platforms for 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. With thredUP's Resale-as-a-Service, some of the world's leading brands and retailers are leveraging our platform to deliver customizable, scalable resale experiences to their customers. thredUP has processed over 137 million unique secondhand items from 55,000 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.