Sally Armstrong, senior, scans the racks at Savers looking for skirts and dresses.

“There is always so much on the racks, and it feels like infinite things to find,” Armstrong said. 

A new Savers store located on Manchester Road in Ballwin opened on Thursday, Feb. 26, making it the second location within 10 miles from MHS. 

Armstrong said that Savers is her backup for prom dresses if she can’t find any at other stores. 

She said thrifting shows shoppers how loved clothes can be, as well as how easily clothes can be discarded, even when they are first bought.

“I enjoy the experience because you can kind of see what people in the past wore,” Armstrong said.

Neptune Hardcastle, junior, works at the new Savers because of their love of thrifting and their previous experience working at Plato’s Closet. 

More teenagers are thrifting, Hardcastle said. Hardcastle said the attraction to thrifting is the cheap prices and sustainability. 

According to NPR, Generation Z accepted second hand fashion faster than any other age group, and made up 40% of global consumers. 

“It’s better for the environment, a lot of clothes go to waste each year and thrifting helps them reuse stuff,” Hardcastle said.

Susan Hartley, environmental science teacher, has seen the rise of fast fashion with name brands like Shein and Temu. 

“If you’re gonna buy something that has good quality but it is going to cost more, then people will put that money into it because they know it will be around for a while,” Hartley said. “But it’s those quick fast fashion type things that people will just throw away.” 

Hartley said that instead of all the items going straight to the landfill, they can go to a thrift store and have another chance of being worn.

“Thrifting is usually the higher quality stuff, it saves emissions globally, it saves from just resources in general,” Hartley said.