Sustainable in Name, Fast in Practice: A Social Practice Approach to Digital Second-hand Clothing Consumption on Vinted and Sellpy

Sammanfattning

This thesis explores the tensions between second-hand clothing consumption enabled by digital platforms such as Vinted and Sellpy as sustainable alternatives to fast fashion. Rather than treating the narratives at face value, we critically examine how service design elements on second-hand digital platforms mirror those of fast fashion. By keeping our focus on Generation Z consumers, we draw on Social Practice Theory (Shove et al., 2012), analyzing today’s second-hand consumption practice constituted by materials, competences and meanings in everyday life. Our findings reveal that platform service design actively reorganizes second-hand consumption by reducing friction and embedding acquisition into everyday routine, while the competencies consumers develop through repeated engagement deepen their engagement rather than reduce it. Moreover, sustainability and environmentally friendly narratives function as a moral entry point but ultimately evolve into a framework of perpetual loops in which selling and buying become mutually enabling. This positions second-hand clothing consumption within tensions of the circular economy where consumption narratives may co-exist with sustained practices. By arguing for a reproduction and legitimization of such practices we contribute to academic research on circular clothing consumption and digital retail by offering a practice based understanding of platform service design. Keywords: Social Practice Theory, Digital second-hand platforms, Digital retail, Service design, Circular economy, Generation Z