‘Stranger Things’ Star Priah Ferguson and ThredUp’s New Hotline Will Help You Quit Fast Fashion

Ready to ditch fast fashion but finding it more difficult than you thought? Secondhand platform ThredUp has partnered with Stranger Things star Priah Ferguson on a new support hotline to help you quit the bad habit once and for all.

Call in your fast-fashion confessions to 1-855-THREDUP and let Ferguson’s reassuring voice put you at ease. That’s the goal of the new campaign aimed at helping consumers make the switch from fast fashion to sustainable options such as secondhand.

Ditching fast fashion

According to ThredUp, there’s an urgent need to help consumers make the shift. It points to Shein, the fast fashion giant that releases 10,000 new items daily aimed at younger shoppers.

Seventy-two percent of college students said they purchased fast fashion in the last year, with 40 percent saying they’re likely to only wear those garments once. As much as 60 percent of fast fashion items are discarded in the same year they’re purchased, says ThredUp.

Much of the shoppers say they’re influenced by social media, with 50 percent saying they watch fast fashion hauls on social channels weekly, with 40 percent following fast fashion sites.

But despite their close connection to fast fashion, 60 percent say they want to purchase more secondhand fashion to make their wardrobes more sustainable.

Secondhand shopping benefits

Shoppers calling the Ferguson-hosted hotline will hear the star confess to her own fast-fashion habits and how she made the shift to more sustainable options like secondhand. Ferguson reportedly lets the callers know why fast fashion is bad for the planet and how secondhand clothing is a better option.

The secondhand market is booming. Recent projections by ThredUp suggest it will be twice the size of fast fashion by 2030. The platform also found that more than 30 percent of women shopped thrift last year.

According to ThredUp, Gen Z shoppers will buy at least 12 new items for the 2022-2023 school season. The platform says if those items were all swapped with secondhand options, that would save the equivalent of nearly 10 billion pounds of CO₂, which is about the same as planting 116 million trees.

Callers dialing into the ThredUp hotline will also be directed to a collection of secondhand items curated by Ferguson.