An Obsession: Secondhand Clothing

Before I came to Morocco, secondhand clothes hardly interested me. I had set foot in Goodwill a few times, only to halfheartedly sift through the shelves and leave empty handed. Flash forward eight months...and I find myself with a passion for secondhand shopping. In the past few weeks, I have been to way to many souks and dug through far too many piles of years old clothing. Even as I emerge with enough shirts, dresses, and sweaters to exceed any airline's weight limit, I find myself answering the question "Can you really ever have too many secondhand clothes?" with a resounding NO. 

Secondhand clothing makes its way from Europe to Morocco and eventually, I'd imagine to other nations. I like to imagine the previous owners of the clothing--where they wore it, why they gave it up. I've run into Zara, Burberry, and Tommy Hilfiger! Most of the clothing is sold on tables in the souk. 

*the tables look like this!

In the morning, huge bundles full of clothes are unrolled, then re rolled and stored during the night. Shopping in the souk is a bit stressful--the vendors (who are almost exclusively men) stand on top of tables and sing songs (complete with LOTS of clapping) to encourage buyers. Typically, all articles of clothing are mixed together, from pants to shirts to skirts. There's also sections for belts, hats scarves, shoes, bags, and even used socks. Because there is usually no dressing room, it's hard to know if something will fit until you bring it home and try it on. Each table has a price--sometimes as low as 10 DH ($1.25) or as much as 25 DH ($4.00). Either way, by US standards, the clothing being sold in these markets is very inexpensive. Many of the clothes mark the fine line between "really cute" and "extremely strange," but I find it impossible to leave the tables without a few additions to my wardrobe. 

I also recently discovered used clothing stores in the Medina, which is much closer to my house than any souk. This time there is no clapping or singing, just the chatter of shoppers coaching each other through the search. I love how there's somewhat of an etiquette. Even though many women surround one large table,  each one seems to know not to reach over into the other one's area. It's similar to the way cous cous (or really any dish in my host family's home) is eaten: we all gather around one plate, but respect our separate spaces, our 'lanes.' 

 I don't think it's a stretch to say that finding secondhand clothes is somewhat of an art, and one that I'm priding myself at becoming quite good at, maybe too good at. However, I've never seen anything like this in the United States, and I only have a few more months here to cram all the clothes I can into my bags! 

*my suitcase in June

*these are not my pictures