Description

Thrifting is a massive phenomenon in this decade’s more sustainability-conscious culture which has reached Singapore’s shores, as society starts to move on from previous decades of overconsumption and fast-shifting fashion trends. With the maturing of internet fashion culture, people can opt out of the mainstream fashion narrative and pursue their own stylistic choices, and thrifting is one of the easy and affordable means to that.

Thus, our research aims to address the different fashion options in thrifting that have blossomed from this cultural shift, packaged in a fun and engaging way for the audience to peruse the various fashion tastes of the contemporary thrift shop consumer.

Findings and Insights

Instead of attempting to address the stigma of second-hand clothing, we decided to have our data speak for itself and be the key lead to the creation of our publication. Thrifted clothing is a part of youth culture nowadays, so we have lots of data to draw from. We wanted to prove that thrifting itself also has visual interest as well as material variety. For example, we found out that the most prominent material purchased was cotton, and a lot of styles and vintage clothing also turned up. Leather could also be affordably found in thrift stores, as well as silk.

Design Decisions

Inspired by fashion publications and artist books, we decided on a minimal design solution that showcases the clothing and its details best — including text and commentary excerpts where required. Filling the book with cleanly-cropped images on white background allows the images to stand out and were laid out differently for each section.

The narrow book format allows it to be held and carried around easily and we finished it off with a perfect bind so that the spreads flow undisrupted.

Challenges

Our initial approach with the Google Form was to act as an open-call for all our peers in and outside of LASALLE. However, the form presented some difficulties and was a hassle for many. We decided to reframe the questions and only sent them to friends outside of LASALLE who were willing to provide images from their homes.

With the large amount of data we had, we were rushing into the sections with no foundations laid out and our images unspecified and ungrouped. We were able to take a step back and organise our inventory.

Feedback

In terms of the overall impression of the book, it received generally positive feedback and comments. As for the documentation, readers mentioned that embracing the white space throughout the whole book worked to our advantage, and the images we collected were crisp and clear.

In regards to the interpretation of the topic, the lecturers mentioned that we achieved a great feat because it started out as a simple idea, but the execution proved to be a difficult task. Because the data collection, as well as the design of the layouts, were not easily achievable within our goals, we had to improvise creative solutions.

Achievements

We produced a complete and polished publication with various images of our thrifted findings as well as visual commentary, which highlighted interesting elements in our everyday outfits readers may have missed. It is divided into four easily digestible sections. We are incredibly proud of the outcome that we achieved, and we are very happy that we did not back down from the countless obstacles that we faced during the whole process.