This New Circular Store In Brooklyn Lets You Buy and Tailor Preloved Clothing

A new circular fashion store just opened up in Brooklyn, New York. Launched by secondhand fashion platform thredUP and denim brand Madewell, A Circular Store is designed to be the ultimate sustainable shopping destination, offering a full wardrobe of preloved clothing and features mending stations, repair services and upcycling workshops. 

A Circular Store just landed in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, claiming to “challenge the definition of a traditional retail store.” It’s the latest project to come out of a partnership between thredUP and Madewell, aimed at promoting sustainable fashion choices. The new store will feature a full assortment of preloved Madewell denim clothing, as well as mending and tailoring services.

Circular fashion

In addition to secondhand pieces and repairing options, A Circular Store boasts multiple circular fashion features including the option to pass on your preloved items responsibly and educational programs like upcycling workshops with Patagonia’s Worn Wear team. 

All of the clothing in the store are 100% secondhand Madewell pieces, sourced from thredUP, with prices ranging from $10 to $40. According to thredUP, purchasing used clothing means cutting your emissions by as much as 82% compared to buying new. Mending them instead of throwing them away saves 19 pounds of CO2 each year.

While browsing through the store, QR codes will be available for scanning at each station to provide shoppers with information on how to best care for their products, from washing instructions to how to properly recycle the item at its end-of-life.

Once shoppers pick out their preloved pieces, everything will be packaged in circular reusable cotton bags. Madewell and thredUP even tell their customers to use this bag at least 150 times, to make up for the environmental cost of its production. 

Related: 10 stats proving that secondhand is the future of fashion

‘A store to represent the future of fashion’

Speaking about the concept behind the new brick-and-mortar store, thredUP integrated marketing VP Erin Wallace said: “We’ve designed a store to represent the future of fashion—a circular future in which retailers design for longevity, and consumers shop with resale in mind.”

“For too long, the fashion industry has operated with a linear, disposable model,” she added. “Our hope is that visitors will leave inspired and armed with the knowledge they need to take a more sustainable approach to their wardrobes.”

For Madewell, a brand owned by the J.Crew Group, it’s a move that will undoubtedly help it stay relevant with increasingly eco-conscious consumers. According to thredUP’s data, the secondhand market in the US alone is set to reach $77 billion within the next five years, with shoppers’ concerns about sustainability as a key driver of the resale boom.

Other preloved fashion platforms like Vestiaire Collective and Rebag have also reported surging sales in recent months, with the former citing a 90% year-on-year increase globally as it bags a record $209 million round from high-profile investors like SoftBank and Al Gore.

In response to consumer pressure for more sustainability from brands, Madewell sustainability chief Liz Hershfield says the company is now “doubling down on solutions that keep clothing in circulation as long as possible and reduce apparel waste.”

All images courtesy of thredUP / Madewell.