Popularity among American women in buying second-hand clothes

During the financial crisis, many American women began to plan carefully. According to Reuters, in order to cut expenses, American women no longer buy new dresses for various parties at the end of the year. Instead, they choose to wear last year’s old dresses or buy second-hand and discounted clothes.
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Cathy Johnson and her husband run a technology consulting company in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA. This time last year, she was traveling in London and Paris with her husband, and she spent $2,000 on a big-name handbag without any hesitation. She was going to a few holiday parties this year, but to save money she decided to wear an old dress.
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She said: “I thought maybe no one would notice that I secretly put on last year’s old dress. I decorated the old dress and made it slightly different.” Under the financial crisis, her idea seems to have become popular throughout the United States.
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The popularity of “old clothes in new clothes” among American women is “bad news” for department stores, fashion stores, and clothing manufacturers. The stores originally hoped to take advantage of the “party season” at the end of the year to increase sales. A recent survey by Bertalia Winston Anritsu Consulting found that one in five U.S. companies canceled their 2008 holiday parties. The U.S. retail industry also announced that sales in October fell to the lowest level in nearly 30 years.