Episode 158: A Love Letter To Malls & Community, with Carley Lake of Lucky Sweater

Welcome to Clotheshorse, the podcast that really does love a good mall.

I’m your host Amanda and this is episode 158. And the theme of this week’s episode is “community,” specifically how community is a key component of shifting away from fast fashion and moving toward a slow, circular economy. My guest this week is Carley Lake, the co-founder of trading community Lucky Sweater. We are going 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. We’ll also reminisce quite a bit about malls!

Before we meet Carley, I want to talk about another trading community: Buy Nothing Groups. I’ll start by saying that Sara Grossman sent me some info about a growing controversy within the Buy Nothing world a few months ago, but I’ve just been too busy to get around to talking about it until now. Thank you, Sara for looping me in!

For those of you who are new to the world of Buy Nothing…or have only heard me mention it here and there and on Instagram about 1 million times and wondered what the heck I was talking about… Buy Nothing groups are a network of hyperlocal communities for sharing and trading secondhand stuff, food you bought that you don’t really like, service swaps, and also for looking for things you need. I chose our neighborhood here in Austin because I heard that it had a great Buy Nothing group. That said to me that it was a community that shared my values and a place where people cared about their neighbors. I see all kinds of things being swapped and shared in my group. This week alone: bookshelves, cleaning products, puzzles. A few weeks ago, someone asked for a can of peas for an art project and she shared the final product last week (a bunch of really cool tiny dioramas). Today someone asked for those big 35 pound plastic cat litter tubs so she can use them for planting her garden. It’s a very functional and positive space, with neighbors eager to help one another and everyone is very polite and thoughtful.

The first Buy Nothing group was founded by two women, Rebecca Rockefeller and Liesl Clark in 2013. They wanted to create a space that was focused on building relationships. And it was important to them that nothing was too “unvaluable” to be worth a give, whether it was baby clothes, a bunch of those jars from expensive yogurt, half a box of cereal, or maybe some egg shells (great for gardening). It struck a chord with people! By mid-2022, there were thousands of groups in 60 countries, with more than 6 million members.

The key (as if the name “buy nothing” wasn’t clear enough) is that no one pays for anything. Rather, givers are “gifting” items, services, etc to their neighbors. And there are a few key elements of the Buy Nothing group structure that make it different from other trade/sharing platforms out there (and some of these elements/rules would end up being controversial):

First, as I mentioned, no money exchanges hands here. And the entire process of gifting/request/receiving items is slow. No one sitting at home refreshing over and over again has an advantage. Rather than a “first come, first served” approach, givers are encouraged to wait a day before choosing a recipient.

Next, the trading/gifting is limited to your closest community, your neighbors. And I actually love this approach because the intention is that by actually trading items with your direct neighbors, you will build relationships with them that you might not have had otherwise. These relationships are particularly integral in times of natural disaster, global pandemic. It’s really good to know your neighbors when things get really hard! And really the long term goal was that the neighborhood relationships would become so strong, that eventually the groups would become obsolete…because rather than posting, you would just go talk to your neighbors directly. For this reason, one of Buy Nothing’s rules for a long time was that no group could have more than 1,000 members. If it did exceed that threshold, then it was time for the group to be split into two parts. That process is called “sprouting.” Once again, the idea here being that you couldn’t possibly have more than 1,000 neighbors, so if you’re extending beyond that, you’re extending outside of your immediate community. Furthermore, keeping things hyper local reduces the carbon footprint of the trade.

Because Buy Nothing is very anti-capitalist/anti consumerism at its core, all labor involved is on a volunteer basis. To explain how it works, I’m going to read a passage from the Wired article, The Battle for the Soul of Buy Nothing. I’m also going to share this article in the show notes (along with other writing about Buy Nothing) and you should definitely give all of it a read!

Rockefeller and Clark decided early on that they didn’t want to codify Buy Nothing’s principles into a business or a nonprofit, with all the unwieldy administration that would entail. They did, however, want to supervise how the Buy Nothing groups functioned, so they built a makeshift management structure using the tools already embedded in Facebook. On Facebook, groups have to be operated by one or more administrators, so Rockefeller and Clark decided to have local volunteers run each group. They disseminated information to these people through another Facebook group called the Admin Hub. They appointed regional admins to oversee the local ones, and finally a small circle of about 20 global admins to handle project-wide tasks and weigh in on big decisions. Rockefeller and Clark had the final word.

Almost all of the admins were women, and their labor was entirely volunteer. As Rockefeller and Clark sank their lives into Buy Nothing, sometimes at the expense of their families and careers, so too did thousands of others. Local administrators said they spent seven or eight hours a week, and in some cases as many as 40, reviewing requests to join their groups, making sure their communities felt welcoming, and keeping the giving spirit active by, for example, posting messages of gratitude.

Over time, Rockefeller and Clark began working full time (and unpaid) on Buy Nothing. Before Buy Nothing, Clark had been a documentary filmmaker. Rockefeller had been an executive director of an organization that helped people with disabilities. She eventually had to step down and find a part time administrative job that paid a little bit more than minimum wage, because Buy Nothing was kinda eating up everything. She told Wired,

“I’m basically living on the edge of poverty so that I can serve this thing that I helped create.” She acknowledged she’d done this by choice. Still, she added, “Sometimes it feels like, ‘Oh, this is absolute insanity, it makes no sense.’”

One last thing about Buy Nothing that would become controversial eventually: it all existed on Facebook. In fact, the organization–which once again, generated no income for anyone involved–really relied on the free technological infrastructure of Facebook groups for organizing and sharing information. Of course, we know that nothing is really free on Facebook, we’re paying with our personal data. And Facebook has been instrumental in the spread of misinformation. It never sat well with the founders that they relied on Facebook, but it was also a free tool in an organization that had literally no money involved in it. So they had to roll with it. And they also had to admit that they liked the personal element of seeing someone’s photo, profile, etc. It made the whole thing less transactional, less anonymous.

Things went well for a long time, but nothing was perfect (of course). While many found order and comfort in all of the rules and structure of the Buy Nothing organization, others did not. Per Wired, “While Rockefeller and Clark regularly received notes of gratitude, they also got messages of irritation, and even hate mail, that blamed them for mishaps and infighting in the local groups or accused them of heavy-handedness with all the rules.”

Meanwhile, everyone was still working for free. And on one hand, some of the volunteers felt fine giving all of that time to such a great cause. But others were like, “this is a full time job and I actually need a full time job that makes money.” Rockefeller and Clark actually dreamed of turning Buy Nothing into a job that paid everyone for their work, but it was hard to find a way that it would work.

In 2018, things really started to hit the proverbial fan. First, was the controversy around the Buy Nothing group in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood. The group was nearing 5000 members, far beyond the organization’s “sprouting” threshold of 1000. Regional admins directed the local admins to break into smaller groups. This was a controversial move because the neighborhood had long been segregated economically and racially. There was fear that breaking up the Buy Nothing group would just be another form of segregation, a major step backwards. Regional admins tried to get involved, but it only worsened the situation, as many members felt unheard and ignored. I’m giving you the really simplified version here, but I’ll share a link to a Medium piece by Jamaica Plans Buy Nothing group member, Kai Haskins called “That “Hyper-Local” Buy Nothing Group You Love is Controlled by a Wealthy White Woman in Washington State and is Reinforcing Systemic Racism and Segregation,” which gives every detail of what happened. Ultimately, a new, non-Buy Nothing group was formed that was not affiliated with Buy Nothing. In the midst of the controversy, Buy Nothing members across the country shared stories of experiencing racism and discrimination within their groups. Others wondered if all the rules and mandatory “civility” just reinforced classism and white supremacy within a community that was supposed to be about care and aid. And it was kinda the beginning of the end…except it was also the beginning of Rockefeller and Clark’s “listening and learning” period, where they took feedback from members and figured out how to make the system better.

And changes did come out of it:

Rules around language, abbreviations, etc were changed to make the community more accessible to those who had difficulty typing, reading or used digital readers.

“Tip Jars” were added to local groups, with the hope of reimbursing admins for their free labor. Some were super stoked about this change, others found it completely not in line with the ethos of Buy Nothing. Personally–and I say this as a person who works 7 days a week for free on a little project called Clotheshorse–people should be paid for their labor. If you’re spending 40 hours a week moderating your Buy Nothing group–and I’m sure you deal with some unsavory behavior–that’s 40 less hours you have to clean your house, cook meals, do your laundry, care for yourself, or even just relax. And you know what? You’re probably spending money to fill those gaps, whether it’s buying take out food or paying someone to clean your house or getting a lot less sleep. When you consider that paying people for their labor is not a part of the Buy Nothing ethos, you see a major crack in the logic of the whole thing. Like, it’s too pure of a concept to be truly productive.

Next, groups were allowed to expand and the rule around only being allowed to belong to one group was removed, because it was preventing unhoused or transient people from participating.

And lastly, Rockefeller and Clark removed themselves from all regional and local groups, saying

“Over the past 7 years, we’ve learned a lot about how to foster and support the development of local Buy Nothing gift economy groups, and we’ve made several important changes to our protocols. Among the things we’ve learned is that local Buy Nothing groups need to be locally managed, led by local volunteers who give their time and energy in service to their real-life neighbors and community. In order to realize this, we are actively removing ourselves from each and every group, handing full responsibility and control over to the current local leadership team.”

They shared all training resources under a Creative Commons style agreement, letting local groups take the wheel.

But there was one thing they REALLY wanted to do: leave Facebook, for obvious reasons, right? This was not a platform they wanted anyone to think they were aligned with. And they also felt that Facebook sort of empowered some really bad behavior

“Even if your motivations are purely lovely and welcoming and inclusive, you’re basically putting yourself in the meat grinder of social media, and you will be eaten up,” Rockefeller told Wired.

Moving off of Facebook wasn’t going to be easy. For one, all of the infrastructure was free. And Buy Nothing didn’t make money. It didn’t even have a cent. And it would mean shifting millions of people away from Facebook and into an app, which would be a difficult transition.

Rockefeller and Clark wanted to develop an app that would allow anyone to join without Facebook. But apps cost money. They tried to do a crowdfunding within all of Buy Nothing groups, hoping that if everyone contributed a tiny bit of money, they would have enough to build the platform. And with millions of users, everyone would have to donate less than a dollar. But it was a flop. Members bristled at the idea of money being involved at all. After all, wasn’t no money kinda the theme of the organization? They raised $20,000, which wasn’t enough to do anything, and they gave the money back.

It didn’t help that Rockefeller and Clark were also promoting their forthcoming book, The Buy Nothing, Get Everything Plan. They wrote, “Money isn’t all that wonderful. The market economy begets isolation, and money disconnects us from one another.” There was definitely some expectation that the book sales would help fund the app development (and I’m sure Rockefeller and Clark were hoping that they might get paid for some of their years of free labor). Buy Nothing members meanwhile were concerned that the founders were “selling out.” No one needed to worry because the book was a flop. They weren’t going to be able to fund the app that way.

They managed to get $100K in loans/investment from friends and family, which they used to build an app. But $100K doesn’t get you a good app. And so it was buggy and kinda crappy. They raised another $400K to try to make it better. But people were for the most part, unwilling to make the shift from facebook groups to the app. And the app was kinda a flop. On one hand, it allowed people to search outside their immediate neighborhood. Some loved this, others thought it was unfair. On the other hand, it felt more anonymous and impersonal. Disgruntled admins left the Buy Nothing organization and created their own groups, utilizing the training and infrastructure docs from the original organization.

The app continued to be a flop, while still costing money to maintain. Clark was funding the $5000 a month necessary to keep the website and app running out of her own pocket. Adoption of the app was stagnating, and more and more admins were leaving the organization and starting their own groups, often while still utilizing the name “Buy Nothing” or at least using all of the training docs, etc. At this point, Clark and Rockefeller decided to trademark Buy Nothing, which moved Facebook to deactivate all accounts using that term that were not part of the organization.This created even more fury. These groups rebranded to “Gifting with Integrity.”

Meanwhile Clark and Rockefeller continued to try to look for ways to keep the organization running and complete the shift from Facebook to app. They pitched investor after investor, who were kinda like “okay, but how does this app make money.” And no one had a great answer. Maybe delivery fees? Membership fees?

I really liked this passage from the Wired article, that kinda sums up the quandary:

In some ways, Rockefeller and Clark’s loss of control made me think of women inventors who hadn’t gotten credit for their products: Rosalind Franklin, the scientist who helped discover the double helix; Lizzie Magie, the gamemaker who invented Monopoly. But then, Rockefeller and Clark had started Buy Nothing as a counteragent to the capitalist ethic that concentrates wealth and power in the hands of the few while ruining lives, communities, and the environment. The project had been a success, owing to their efforts, certainly, and also to those of the thousands of volunteers who made Buy Nothing their own. If the movement ended up splintering into an unaccountable mess of local variations—and Rockefeller and Clark didn’t make a cent in the process—maybe that was the most fitting ending possible.

The overall feeling seems to be that unfortunately, all organizations require money to run. Website hosting costs money. Computers and internet cost money. People should be paid for their labor. But perhaps the “purity” of the term “Buy Nothing” prevents that from happening. It’s hard for me to say. I don’t have an easy answer here. Except that maybe we should support the organizations and things that matter to us? Because otherwise we end up with unsustainable situations that grow and then burn out. It’s wild that the founders of Buy Nothing have been working for free for 10 years now, and paying for the expenses of running it out of their own pockets. It’s disheartening that admins are working unpaid full time jobs. These situations burn you out. They make you resentful of others who ask for more labor from you. They ultimately undermine any real progress or staying power because they just aren’t sustainable.

Meanwhile my community Buy Nothing continues to thrive, despite all of this. I’m sure our local admin is doing a ton of work (I’ve seen them put out some fires here and there). But I hope that the Buy Nothing system doesn’t fall apart. It’s a really simple idea that has a major impact on our communities, our planet, and even us as individuals.

Thanks again to Carley for dropping by to reminisce about malls (I’ve been craving Auntie Anne’s since our conversation) and to telling us more about Lucky Sweater! You can find Lucky Sweater on instagram as @lucky.sweater. And you can download the app in the App Store and from Google Play. And you can learn all of the details at luckysweater.com

As I told Carley, community and collaboration are the key to making the Slow Fashion movement a way of life for more and more people. And that all starts with us! Fast fashion democratized style, trends, fashion as a whole, removing the barriers of cost and accessibility, making fashion something that anyone could participate in. Okay, maybe not EVERYONE because fast fashion still refuses to dress a lot of bodies out there. But in general, fashion became less exclusive. At the same time, the rise of visual social media mediums like Instagram, and Youtube…later followed by TikTok, allowed every day people who weren’t models or celebrities or editors at Vogue, people who wouldn’t ordinarily have the opportunity to be style leaders or trend setters…to show off their own style, and influence others with their taste and suggestions. Yes, i’m talking about influencers but I’m also talking about us. Because the idea of “a new outfit for every instagram post” might have started with influencers, but it trickled down to all of us and kinda got into our psyches, encouraging us that we too should always wear something new. Fast fashion and social media are so dependent on another for their revenue streams.

But while shopping online is easy and super convenient, bringing access to any brand anywhere in the world right to your doorstep, it’s lonely. It’s not the same as spending the day at the mall with your friend. There’s no one to try on clothes with you. You eat lunch alone. It’s not an experience. For years, the fashion media published article after article wondering how retailers could translate the social aspect of shopping IRL into social media. And in many ways, it worked: “swipe ups,” tagging brands in our outfits, haul videos…these made shopping alone, less lonely. Sort of.

It’s still lonely, right?

That’s why I think Slow Fashion has a unique opportunity to sort of “defeat” fast fashion…because it’s a far less lonely experience. We’re here for one another, even if it’s only online. What if we harnessed that power of social media and used it to educate and welcome people into the community rather than sell them something? This is something I’m thinking about constantly. I want people to see real information and a better path forward sandwiched between ads for clothes and makeup on their feeds. And you can do the same just by sharing photos showing your own attempts at sustainable lifestyle changes, from slow gifting to secondhand shopping to mending. Let’s use social media for good.

Beyond that, let’s bring Slow Fashion into real life. How do we get the social experience of shopping without shopping? What is the low consumption version of a whirlwind shopping montage in a movie? How do we build connections that don’t involve buying stuff, and in theory, are far more meaningful. I want to hear from you about this. Send your ideas my way!

Let’s exert our influence to those around us and show them a better path forward. And let’s welcome new people into this more ethical, less wasteful way of life. Let’s show everyone that slow fashion, buying less, needing less…is a far happier way of life.