OK, fellow humans. I come with an article with a message that's hard to swallow. As people, we live day-to-day, glancing at Instagram, running errands, working, doing fun stuff in our free time, and shopping. But when was the last time you paid attention to what you buy - specifically the clothes you buy?

Without us even knowing, like some sort of sneak attack, fast fashion has attacked our material world and has turned us into clones: all wearing the same clothes, all lacking authenticity. When's the last time you bought something and felt like, "Wow, this is really me!"? Fast fashion is one of the reasons why we don't feel that anymore.

So what is this "fast fashion" that I'm yelling about? I'm talking about stores like Forever 21, Agaci, H&M, Tilly's — just stores that produce a bunch of clothes VERY fast, sell them cheap, and could care less about the impact. The shirts that cost you about ten dollars cost maybe fifty cents to a dollar to make. This "cheap" clothing is made in countries like Bangladesh where the workers are paid very little (I've heard it's about one dollar an hour) to create the very clothes we buy from there at a very fast paste. The conditions they work in are terrible, and the clothes themselves are doused in chemicals to prevent them from decomposing. Sometimes, we throw clothes away or donate them. If they don't sell at a thrift store, they are thrown away. Either way, they usually go in the trash. What happens then is that, because the clothes are made of synthetic material, they don't decompose properly. They will sit in mounds for thousands of years and there seems to be nothing we can do about it... except there is.

A couple of months ago, I started to shop for true vintage. I went to the Tampa Indie Flea and met a lovely human named Alyssa. Her business is Soul Rebel Exchange, and she's one of the many humans who does a lovely thing for fashion, and that is preserving the old, quality stuff. She has an incredible eye too!! I had thrifted before, but it was her who taught me how to look for TRUE vintage. I started to thrift more, specifically for USA-made shirts and other authentic, well-made clothing.

Ever since I started thrifting and buying from local vintage vendors, I feel more confident and like that, I'm wearing something that represents who I am. I feel like I've found my style. I highly encourage you to start shopping true vintage and/or USA-made brands (like California Retrowear). You'll be supporting someone who cares about you and you'll be one less person putting money into the hands of a corporation.