In some high street shopping centres charity shops seem to be almost as common as new clothing shops. The huge increase in the number of these and second-hand clothing outlets can be explained in many ways. As people buy more new clothing the second-hand clothing shops are an obvious place for them to dispose of their unwanted fashions from last season. Economic reasons could lead us to assume
that lack of money means that the only clothing some people can afford is from the second-hand market. Or it could be that more environmentally conscious people are preferring to buy second hand and so recycling clothing rather than always buying new. The retro look of the late 1990s meant that second-hand clothes shops were a good source of desirable genuinely fashionable items.
