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Decked head to toe in secondhand wear from various thrift stores.
PHOTO: NICOLE CHIN
Journey towards Sustainable Fashion
Nicole Chin shares with KHELL LEE her interest in thrifting and sustainable fashion and her experience working with Carousell.
Decked head to toe in secondhand wear from various thrift stores.
PHOTO: NICOLE CHIN
TikToker Nicole Chin, 26, does sustainable and vintage fashion content and has been thrifting for over 10 years, but it wasn’t because she wanted to be sustainable.
“I didn't have the budget to buy expensive clothes,” says Ms Chin. Back in the day, there weren’t any affordable shopping platforms like Shein, Taobao and Ezbuy.
Her interest in thrifting started in secondary school, when she came across an online series on YouTube, Budget Barbie by Clicknetwork. Hosted by Blogger Bong Qiu Qiu who would recommend thrifting at places like Salvation Army and Scape.
“Scape used to have like flea markets every Saturday,” says Ms Chin. “They sold coats for maybe like $5 to $10.”
Nicole donating her pre-loved clothes to Salvation Army, give back to one of the places that she thrifts most. PHOTO: NICOLE CHIN
About four to five years ago, she got caught up with shopping on Taobao and Ezbuy, buying more than what she needed only to realise the quality wasn’t the best.
“You buy then you throw away, it's very horrible. So, then I started to become more conscious of what am I buying [and] what am I putting into my wardrobe? That’s when I started to be more sustainable,” says Ms Chin.
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Throughout her journey on TikTok, Ms Chin became recognised for her Thrifted Outfits of the Week videos and pictures on Instagram. Soon after that, Carousell discovered Ms Chin from Instagram as she regularly tags them whenever she wore something from Carousell.
In April, Carousell reached out to her to do a live stream on Instagram to engage their users other than via the app. While Ms Chin was not paid, she was given $100 as a challenge to see what items she could thrift with.
Nicole got featured on Carousell's homepage in April with her own recommendation page where others can shop for vintage items easily. PHOTO: NICOLE CHIN
“It’s a very good experience for me as a new content creator,” says Ms Chin, “They’re very professional, they prepared a script, they prepared the lighting and everything for me.”
“Nicole was pleasant to liaise with and [she understood] the brief of the project easily. She also was very helpful and came to us with many suggestions, as she knew this was our first time doing a live stream session,” says Ms Wynona Au, 26, Senior Associate in Consumer Marketing at Carousell. She adds, “Her passion for sharing her love for thrift fashion is really admirable.”
With over 23,000 followers on TikTok, Ms Chin shares how she feels happiest when she receives direct messages on Instagram from people telling her that she has made an impact on them and inspired others to step out of their comfort zone.
Just like every normal human, Ms Chin’s typical day consists of working full-time as a social media manager without having fixed hours, allowing her to have a flexible schedule and time to create more content on TikTok.
A box of vintage jewellery Nicole found in her mother’s wardrobe from the 1950s’.
Her mother is one of the reasons why she loves vintages.
PHOTO: NICOLE CHIN
“The one where she showed her mother’s vintage costume jewellery from the 80s. Those jewellery were huge back [then], and it was nice to see her bringing it back and trying it on to tell people to appreciate 80s’ fashion,” says Ms Nur Assyura, 23, a follower, describing her favourite TikTok video from Ms Chin. “She inspired me to explore vintage fashion.”
Ms Chin advised those who want to avoid fast fashion brands to be conscious of what they’re consuming on social media. For example, they could control what they see on their #FYP (ForYouPage) on TikTok by simply clicking the ‘Not interested’ button to prevent encountering fast fashion clothing hauls.
“For these people to shop fast fashion, I still feel [it] is okay because [that is] where they get their clothes from,” says Ms Chin while describing her friends’ struggles in finding items in their size at thrift stores, especially those who are taller or plus-sized.