Jennifer Lackman has opened the Underground Fashion Exchange in the basement of Western Pawnbrokers.
Lackman’s clothing collection has been sourced from her own wardrobe, as well as her daughter’s clothing from the past five years. She has also hits estate and garage sales, auctions and thrift stores, looking for quality clothing to resell with a focus on brands like Levi’s, Carhart, Pendleton, and designer jeans, as well as unique and one-of-a-kind finds in the used bins.
“It’s important to me,” said Lackman. “There’s too much stuff in the world. When you go all over the world and you live in Seoul … what they have to do with their garbage and how it’s separated. That’s their law, you don’t get a chance to just throw things away. I just want to recycle everything.”
“Fast fashion” has become one of the world’s largest producers of waste, and on average a person in the U.S. will throw away more than 80 pounds of clothing each year. Unwanted clothing piles up in landfills and even textile recyclers, who ship the materials overseas, adding to global waste.
Jennifer Lackman has opened the Underground Fashion Exchange in the basement of Western Pawnbrokers.
For Lackman, finding discarded gems is part of the fun. “There’s nothing like a good find and something cool that I think someone else would enjoy,” she said. “I can’t even afford (to purchase new) some of the clothes that I have.”
Being tucked away in the basement below Western Pawnbrokers and Farwest Gallery, Lackman is embracing the underground aesthetic. The small basement boutique encompasses one room, and Lackman takes clothing in on trade or pays cash for items, but does not consign clothes, making her an anomaly among the used clothing shops. She hand picks and curates the used clothing racks in a way that represents her own interests and personality. Chances are, one of the pieces of clothing a customer tries on will be one she once wore herself.