The Tale of Second-hand Clothes

This isn't a trail of a piece of clothing but a musing on how in the world these second hand items end up in here?

The second-hand clothes stores, or "ukay" as popularly known, are continually sprouting in every part of the city. There are more stores compared to twenty years or so ago. I do remember my grandmother always have these interesting finds whenever she comes home from the market. These stores are usually found near the market where every person from all walks of life would have to take notice somehow or the other, even if they really not very keen on buying one. There were mostly clothes where my grandma would get her church clothes. She sure hoarded a lot of it during her lifetime.

Fast forward to more than twenty-years, the number of stores have more than doubled, even tripled. These can be found around the market, along the high-way, the main streets and sometimes in surprising places. And some had also specialized into shoes and bags, aside from the common things like clothes. These make me wonder how these clothes ended up here. The labels would usually indicate that they were made in the China, Korea, Japan, U.S. and occasionally South Americas. These are really interesting finds for someone interested in geography. ;)

With a few hesitation before on the idea of diving into the mounds of "ukay", I found myself doing it every now and then. There was more than one occasion that I really scoured quite a number of stores in one whole sunny afternoon. It wasn't really a casual shopping but a dead on quest on making the most of my budget. Yet, sometimes, I wonder if am I really paying fair for the clothes? Some are almost new, with tags that shouts 1$ price but would sometimes be sold a quarter more or double the price even. This is really just ironic. I do have an idea that these products can actually be just donations or trash of other people from other land. Those who cannot live to wear a minutely-stained top or something of that sort, or those who really have no more space in their closets.

It reminded me more than once when we had to move and had to get rid of some clothes that we won't be bringing since we won't be using them in our destination. We put the stuff in a recyle bin late night and I really thought at that time who would end up using the stuff. Some of those were really heartbreaking to part with coz of quality but practicality means we won't be using it at all after the move. I was almost sure that some of those made its way to a second-hand clothes' shop. The same thing that recylcable items collected from every apartment every week. These are mix of kids clothes usually, along with bags, shoes, and even books. Must be very interesting really how one man's trash be another man's treasure.

This really make me wonder how these items travel and I stumbled on this NY TImes article on how a shirt from NY made it's way to Africa. Now, how about the going to Asia? Upon reading this article, I was "relieved" to found out Asia and South America gets the bettter ones compared to the ones going to Africa. Hmm..it leaves us some interesting thought.

Here is the article.