In 2019, logos were ubiquitous, with Fendi’s hoZucca print being named Lyst’s logo of the year and Off-White — known for its use of its stripe, X, and arrow logos — being named the year’s most searched brand. Now, fashion designer Christian Siriano debuted a logo, too, though it’s not for his namesake brand, but rather for online thrift store thredUP. The Thrift Logo is also the first-ever universal symbol for secondhand clothing.
“Everything that's happened in our world in the last year has made being more conscious — in the world of fashion especially — super important,” Siriano tells Refinery29. “I'm a designer that has always, in a way, designed like that. I never was a big, mass-market brand. We're more curated and try our best not to contribute too much waste or over-dye fabrics.” That said, in the 12 years since he founded his namesake brand, despite trying his best to avoid waste, has seen a lot of his garments “go in a box having never been worn or worn once to be archived,” he says. “It started to really bother me.”
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“I like the idea that my clothing could have a second or even third life,” he continues. “Often, I’ll try and send out pieces that may be five or six seasons old, because even if they’ve never been worn by a celebrity or an actress, they can still be appreciated. Why can’t they be worn now?”
Siriano recently sent a dress from his pre-fall ‘19 collection to Patricia Field, a longtime friend of the designer and the costume designer for TV shows and films like Sex And The City and The Devil Wears Prada, for the fashion-filled Netflix hit Emily In Paris. The black, off-the-shoulder, tea-length dress appeared on Emily Cooper (Lily Collins) during the opera scene. “‘I need her to be Audrey Hepburn,’ she told me, and I was like, ‘I got it!’” (On Tuesday, Collins shared her support for thredUP's thrift logo on Instagram.)
When designing his upcoming collection, he also found himself looking back through his archives. “I’m taking pieces that never made the cut, and I'm upcycling them to show that they can still work in a collection,” he explains. For example, after making a suit for the Met Gala that ended up being boxed up, he is now planning on using it. “I was like, No, I'm going to use it. I want to pull it out. I want to update it. So it's going to go in the next collection," he says.
So when thredUP approached the designer about designing The Thrift Logo, intended to build a bigger community around thrifting and giving clothing a longer life, he was immediately intrigued. “I love the idea of a universal symbol that can make people feel like they’re a part of something bigger — something more meaningful,” he says. “I think that a lot of consumers are shopping that way more and more [this year]. They want their clothes to mean something.”
“Our hope is that [this logo] is widely adopted by thrifters and resellers to spark conversation about fashion waste and inspire more people to shop sustainably,” thredUP's VP of Integrated Marketing Erin Wallace tells Refinery29. The logo, a teal-and-blue hanger with the word ‘thrifted’ embroidered on it, is now available on thredUP.com and will be included for free in all orders made this week. Moving forward, the company will be partnering with other thrift stores and resellers, starting with Crossroads Trading.