Clotheshorse with Amanda Lee McCarty

Amanda is joined by Danielle Vermeer, co-founder and CEO of Teleport , “a next-gen thrifting app to discover, buy, and sell from outfit videos.”  They explore why Shein is so popular with Gen Z (and many, many millennials) despite their drive for social and environmental justice.  Amanda gets things rolling with a breakdown of the evolution of fast fashion to ultra fast fashion and an explanation...

Amanda is joined by keynote speaker, life coach, master tailor, and sustainability activist Isabel Varela. At 26, she found herself with more than $100,000 in credit card debt...all from clothes, cosmetics, and accessories.  She’ll tell us how she got there, how she got out of it, and how she has helped others work through their addiction to shopping. Also: Mall Madness and how your shopping searc...

Amanda is joined by award-winning journalist and sustainable fashion expert, Alden Wicker. She will tell us about her new book, To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion Is Making Us Sick – and How we can Fight Back. We will be talking about the chemicals on brand new clothing being sold right now, what the impact of these chemicals is (and yes, it’s major nightmare fuel), and what we can do to protect oursel...

This week, Amanda is joined by Joanne Brasch, PhD, the Special Projects Manager for the California Product Stewardship Council (CPSC) . She is going to help us understand how EPR works and how it will impact business, planet, communities, and us as consumers. She also will tell us about all of the projects and stakeholders involved in CPSC’s projects and legislation goals.  And she will tell us ho...

Maggie Greene and Ruby Gertz are back for the final installment of our three part series about dress codes and uniforms.  In this episode, we will be sharing stories about dress codes and uniforms from the Clotheshorse community.  We’ll also learn more about uniforms, particularly in Japan, and the laws around uniforms here in the United States.  And we’ll also do some exploration of the 1977 best...

Maggie Greene and Ruby Gertz are back to continue the conversation about dress codes. This episode is part 2 of 3.  This week we will be tackling the concept of "professionalism" and how that ties into dress codes. We will do a deep dive into the different categories of professional dress. And we will get to the bottom of how/why these dress codes are enforced, despite the language within these po...

Clotheshorse all-stars Maggie Greene and Ruby Gertz return to Clotheshorse to unpack dress codes and uniforms with Amanda. This episode is part one of a short series. In this episode, we’ll be talking about our own experiences with dress codes and uniforms. Ruby will give us a history lesson on the dress codes over the years. We’ll also unpack both implicitly stated dress codes and implied/sociall...

Meet Lisa, the owner of Two Big Blondes, a plus size consignment shop in Seattle, Washington.  We will be talking about the challenges of running a consignment shop, her advice for all of you looking for plus size secondhand clothing, and how the fashion industry has a long way to go in many, many ways…including the way it does and does not dress larger people.  And Amanda digs in to how and why t...

"Is clothing rental a sustainable option?"  Amanda breaks down the very complicated answer in this episode. Extra Credit Reading "Renting clothing is worse for the planet than just throwing it away, study shows," Elizabeth Segran, Fast Company. Rent the Runway's internal study on sustainability "Ready to Return: Fashion Rental Is Back," Elizabeth Paton and Sapna Maheshwari, The New York Times. "Re...

Today we’ll dig into the early days of Etsy, with special attention on the very crafty, very political, very community-driven primordial soup that birthed Etsy.  This will be a majorly nostalgic moment for some of you, especially if you’ve ever subscribed to Bust or attended a Stitch 'n Bitch night.  We are going to spend most of this episode in 2005, but we'll take a brief trip back to 1998 to le...

While Amanda takes a few weeks off to go to Japan, do a bunch of research and reading, work on outreach for future guests, and just generally get inspired and rested, let's revisit some of the favorite episodes of the Clotheshorse community. Throwaway culture may not seem to affect you personally (spoiler: it actually is), but the rapid cycle of shop/wear a few times/donate is having a massive neg...

While Amanda takes a few weeks off to go to Japan, do a bunch of research and reading, work on outreach for future guests, and just generally get inspired and rested, let's revisit some of the favorite episodes of the Clotheshorse community. The thrift industry has a major impact on the humans working within it.  Wages are low, expectations are high, and there is little room for advancement.  Also...

Why does "unisex" clothing always have a menswear aesthetic? How is clothing marketed differently toward men and women? And why is sizing so weird?  In these week's episode, we'll be talking all about gender and the history of sizing in the fashion industry. Amanda is joined by Ruby Gertz and Clotheshorse all-star Maggie Greene to break down these important questions. Get 15% off your first order...

Now that we have debunked all of the myths that form the core of anti-reseller rhetoric, we’ve uncovered a lot of larger systemic issues that are the actual causes of the frustrating things being falsely blamed on resellers. In the final installment of this series examining the ethics of secondhand resale, Amanda explores how the secondhand system can be more equitable and less wasteful.   We will...

This week’s episode is part three of what is now a FOUR episode series (surprise!) examining the ethics of secondhand resale with Alex of St. Evens. In the third installment, we will be exploring the final myth: Resellers misrepresent what they’re selling, list things at wildly inflated prices, and overall behave miserably both online and in person.   We will also explore what we think is at the r...

This week’s episode is part two of a THREE episode series examining the ethics of secondhand resale with Alex of St. Evens. In the second installment, we will tackle two arguments often tossed around in discussions about secondhand on social media: Resellers are taking all of “the good stuff.” Resellers are responsible for rising prices at thrift stores. There is a lot of money to be made off of s...

This week’s episode is part one of a THREE episode series examining the ethics of secondhand resale with Alex of St. Evens. In the first installment, we will tackle two arguments often tossed around in discussions about secondhand on social media: Thrift stores are designed to be a resource for low income people. Resellers are making tons of money from taking things that should be for low income p...

Carley Lake , the co-founder of trading community Lucky Sweater joins Amanda to talk about how her experiences with shopping and fast fashion were an integral part of the journey toward creating a space for trading clothing and building community around slow fashion.  Get ready for some fond memories of the mall! And Amanda explains what's been happening with the Buy Nothing Project and the challe...

Meet Julie Tamerler, a family law, business, and intellectual property attorney…and big time secondhand shopper!  She is going to talk to us about the quandaries resale platforms face when it comes to knockoffs and fakes. It's VERY complicated from both a legal and operational perspective.  We'll explore what *might* (or might not) happen to seller's stuff if The Real Real or ThredUp went bankrupt...

Dustin joins Amanda for part two of their conversation about infomercials. In this episode, we'll tackle the long term impact of the Reagan administration, 1-900 numbers, and some of the most iconic infomercials of the 90s and 00s. READ: “Reagan’s Real Legacy,” Peter Dreier, The Nation. “The 30 Weirdest 1-900 Numbers From The '80s,” Katie Notopoulos, Buzzfeed. “What Psychic Friends Failed to Fores...

Dustin joins Amanda to discuss something near and dear (or at least super nostalgic): infomercials.  How did they become a billion dollar business in the late 80s? And when/where did they begin?  We discuss all of that (and more) in this episode. Watch: The First Infomercial (Vitamix) Ronco Electric Food Dehydrator The Time Life Mysteries of the Unknown Series Pure Moods Read: "The Stepford Channe...

Maggie Greene is back to help Amanda wrap up the laundry series, but this episode is way more than just a wash/dry cycle! We’ll talk about clothing storage. And then after that, Maggie will share her expertise in “seasonal wardrobe management,” which sounds really intimidating but is actually a great way to organize your clothing and get maximum wear out of all of them!  Before all of that we’ll t...

Maggie and Traci are back to help Amanda solve your laundry quandaries! In this episode, we will try to solve your very specific stain problems.  We also give advice on smelly situations, pet hair removal, ironing, denim care, and how to successfully do some hand washing! We get to the bottom of dry cleaning and we answer the question "Do you have to dry clean everything with a 'dry clean only' la...

It's the year of Earth Logic here at Clotheshorse, where we are planning to reduce our consumption of brand new clothing by 75%! It's essential that we get as much wear as possible out of clothes. And how we wash, dry, and deal with those stains is a big part of making our clothing last longer.  Amanda is joined by Maggie and Traci to solve your laundry quandaries.  In this episode, we will be sha...

Writer Rachel Greenley joins us to share what she learned about fast fashion while working at a seasonal warehouse job processing returns for a big online retailer. She has the unique perspective of working in both the corporate office and warehouse of the same company. Experiencing both ends of the business only underscored the complex, grey areas within retail and our society.  If you have not r...