Local Business Lookout:
Sustainable Style With Karma Trade
Janani Pattabi
As the weather changes, fall and winter fashion is in full swing. Sweater weather has come to play as chunky knits, cute boots, and layering is now all the rage. Fashion enthusiasts with a passion for ethically sourced style should check out Karma Trade, a zero-waste clothing swap platform aimed at disrupting the fast fashion industry. Karma Trade has a thrift store located on 129 North Race Street in Urbana, Illinois along with an online shop at https://www.karmatrade.shop/.
The service is built on the idea of trading in secondhand fashion for in-store credit, called Karma. The amount you receive is tied to online resale data of the donated items, and then using that Karma to purchase any of the stock available. This way, you no longer have to buy and sell and can “simply experience endless fashion,” explained co-CEO of Karma Trade, Mona Fang.
Fang and the team at Karma Trade hope to utilize the concept of a circular economy to combat the massive damage of the clothing industry. “...Fashion, which is the second most polluting industry in the world...especially lives in a linear economy,” Fang explained. “It takes 5,000 liters of clean water just to make one clothing item...That water is used for farming the cotton, dying, and then the transportation.”
Fast fashion is cheap and trendy clothing inspired by catwalk looks and celebrity culture that is turned out at rapid speeds to meet consumer demand. This has a huge negative impact on the environment. Especially with the rise of stores like Forever 21 and Shein, fashion as a whole has become the second most polluting industry, with 80 billion clothing items produced each year followed by 250 million tons of textile waste.
Eco Club’s Vice President Caroline Hartman explained that fast fashion companies “[produce] really cheaply made textile that will often fall apart in a few years or be thrown away and [many of those textiles go] to landfills and they have certain chemicals in them that are harmful to the environment”
Eco Club President Jasmine O’Connor added that she disliked fast fashion because it mainly follows trends and executes them at bargain prices. “With trends,” Jasmine explained, “they continually change so that means every single time a trend changes...items are probably getting thrown away or not...used anymore...it creates this toxic competitive energy with other companies trying to be more sustainable. With the prices being so low for fast fashion, people find it unreasonable that when an item is ethically made or produced that [it] is out of their price point.”
That’s where Karma Trade’s circular economy business plan comes with its proposition to recycle and reuse existing textiles and other products for as long as possible. “You don’t have to spend that 5,000 liters of clean water in order to manufacture [a pair of jeans] as well as human time to cut and sew,” Fang explained. “We don’t have to produce or generate as much waste as we do.”
The concept of Karma Trade was born out of repeated experiences from Fang’s youth. Fang was born in the U.S but moved to China when she was around 7 years old and moved from city to city every year until she was 12. Due to constant moving, she noticed that she had to clean out her closet constantly just to acquire new clothing again. In high school, Fang became passionate about reselling her old clothes and came up with Karma Trade in a coffee shop during a discussion with a friend about how difficult it was to sell secondhand clothing online and how amazing it would be if there was a system in which they could all pool clothes into one central bank and redistribute it.
Fang started the service with her own inventory. “As the youngest kid in my family...I had all my mom’s and my sisters' clothes that they just gave me as hand-me-downs.” Fang stated. Then through hosting a bunch of clothing swaps, we were able to get more clothes from the local community and since then [Karma Trade] has just flourished.” Karma Trade has acquired about 17,000 clothing items from the local community from people of all demographics, ages, and genders in just the past year.
Why does it make sense for students like us to shop at Karma Trade? Clothing, for many teens, is a form of expression and can define how we feel about ourselves and about the world around us. Our style is a facet of us and is constantly changing, especially in these formative years. Now instead of worrying when you shop about how much an item costs or how many times you’ll wear a piece, you are simply allowed endless expression and the comfort of knowing that you can always bring it back to find a new home.
There’s also a large amount of diversity when it comes to the clothing itself. Central senior Naveen Illardi-Keist went to one of Karma Trade’s events, The Catwalk, a few months back and described the sheer variation in styles and fits of the clothing. Inclusivity was another thing that stood out to them about the store. “From what I’ve seen there, [Karma Trade] is pretty size-inclusive which is very important for me.” Naveen explained. “Especially when thrifting, it’s really hard to find clothes that fit plus-size people and so I feel that [the service] is great. There was also not really a noticeable distinction between “men's” and “women's” clothing and there were just clothes..you could pick what you like and that’s really important.”
Karma Trade has many opportunities for Central students outside of shopping, such as running events related to retail and thrifting with the service. “If you have an event idea, we have a space for you here!” Fang exclaimed. The outer deck of their store is used to host special events with the local community in the warmer seasons. Another way to get involved is through Karma Trade’s many upcycling partnerships with various creative groups, fashion brands, or student organizations. Those who enjoy repurposing damaged second-hand clothing items should look into the Phoenix Group, a student initiative that is offering sustainable fashion design classes aimed at high school students through Karma Trade.
Central students can also volunteer at Karma Trade. The Urbana location is looking for people to help out for 1-2 hour shifts in exchange for Karma. One of the best perks, however, is the “first dibs” volunteers can get on the incoming stock to see what comes in best before it gets taken out for public consumption.
Karma Trade’s next step is expansion. Fang and the team are starting an initiative called the Karma Outpost System which essentially allows anyone to run a clothing swap, similar to what the service offers. If you set up a clothing drive, you can accept Karma there. Fang encourages those who want to learn more about these “karma outposts” or are thinking about holding their own clothing drive to contact her either through an email at mona@karmatrade.shop or a DM through Karma Trade’s Instagram, @karma.trade. Fang’s dream is to create a decentralized network of second-hand clothing trading through Karma Trade’s innovative digital currency.
The work that Karma Trade is doing is incredibly crucial to the environmental health of our world. According to Fang, we have 9 years left before permanent climate change to reach the U.N’s sustainable development goals; 17 interlinked global goals that hope to help achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. Karma Trade’s small-scale circular economy allows us to build economic systems in our community that enables sustainable consumption and allows us to, Fang warns, continue living on this planet.
