Harare, Zimbabwe – Kimberley Dube takes great care with her appearance. She always looks sharp and fashionable in smart-looking jeans, t-shirts, sweatpants, tops, and designer sneakers.“I love jeans – can’t get enough of them,” the 35-year-old says.
But while she may give the appearance of someone with money to spend on expensive apparel, the self-employed entrepreneur laughs when she says, “You are wrong! These clothes are inexpensive; I get them from secondhand clothes sellers.”
Dube, who lives in Harare, is just one of a multitude of Zimbabweans who have turned their backs on home-grown fashion brands, opting for the booming market in secondhand – or “pre-loved” – imports from overseas instead.
“There’s no shop in this country where you can pay as little as $2 for a pair of jeans,” she scoffs.
Dube is particularly drawn to the stylish individuality that buying second-hand clothes affords her. ”Most clothing stores carry mass-produced items, which you’ll see all over town; the stuff here is unique.”
“Here” is a small market next door to a suburban shopping centre in a middle-class neighbourhood, where we are perusing the wares. Dube’s equally trendy friend and fellow millennial, Gamuchirai Mpofu, a huge fan of preloved clothes, has also come along.
“The nice thing about shopping here is that though the clothes are used, they are durable, unlike the Chinese stuff sold in most shops,” she says. Both of them say buying used cl …
