Score Big, Waste Less
Thrifted University’s impact on game day culture and sustainability
—By Sara Bernardo
It’s your first game day at U of M, and the excitement is unreal. You lay out your outfit on your dorm bed, preparing to join a sea of classmates decked out in maize and blue. Everyone flaunts their coolest Michigan attire, from the free student t-shirt to vintage jackets, jerseys, and more. For freshmen, the pressure to find unique yet affordable game-day outfits each week can feel overwhelming. It’s easy to fall for the flood of advertisements from cheap, fast fashion ads from Amazon, Edikted, Shein, and more. However, one U-M alum, Abby Miars, is fighting against the fast fashion industry as she creates her company, Thrifted University, of second-hand game day clothing.
From dorm room to campus-wide
Originally a Michigan State fan, Miars came to the University of Michigan as a freshman with no festive gear. With the first game typically kicking off in August, students often stock their supply of maize and blue to cheer on the Wolverines. Finding the M Den “expensive, basic, and bland,” Miars hunted for cute and unique Michigan attire; biking to the nearest Goodwill, she found a “gold mine.”
Miars started thrifting in the eighth grade, a passion that sparked ever since her dad took her to garage sales. She enjoys finding stylish and one-of-a-kind clothing for a reasonable price, while also helping the environment. After collecting too many pieces to wear for game days, instead of throwing the clothes out, Miars decided to resell them by starting an Instagram page, and with that, Thrifted University was born.
Recognizing her opportunity for profit, Miars quickly turned to social media and promoted her company in student/parent Facebook groups and told her new friends about the “way to get cool clothing for cheap!” Like any good “rumor,” her Instagram profile found its marketing often by word of mouth between the freshmen in their dorms.
Soon enough, Miars had created a popular Instagram page that allowed her to continuously thrift and sell to fellow students. As Thrifted University gained attention, Miars hosted campus tabling events where students and their friends could shop. Since 2019, Miars has created large success for herself and Thrifted University as she has expanded throughout the Michigan campus and beyond post-grad.
The hunt for secondhand treasure: How does she do it?
Thrifted University is built on Miars’s ability to curate trendy, vintage University pieces for a reasonable price. Miars often scours through Goodwill, Savers, eBay, and other platforms. A central element of Thrifted University, which Miars aims to grow, is its selling component. Anyone can send photos of their clothing, set a price, and sell their clothing to Miars all through her website, creating a continuous cycle for students to recycle and reuse.
On the Thrifted University website, clothing items (jerseys, jackets, tank tops, t-shirts, sweatshirts, etc.) range from $40-$90, while some are on sale for $5-$15. Although these prices may seem expensive, Miars does all the hard work of curation. Shopping through Thrifted University avoids Ebay bidding wars, endless researching, and trips to thrift stores to find the one perfect, unique piece of game day gear. Customers are also guaranteed a second-hand piece for their specific university.
Miars selects items she can profit from while ensuring sellers are satisfied with their earnings, typically buying for 50% of the price of what she sells to cover shipping costs, packaging, and her effort. While Miars recognizes that there are alternative ways to buy second-hand items, and some students may prefer to hunt for their own clothing, she also knows that this option can be inaccessible to others.
Is it actually helping the environment?
For an outsider, the non-cyclical culture of game day shopping would definitely seem frivolous. After a student buys clothing, the average number of times a garment is worn has dropped 36% than it was 15 years ago. The fast-fashion crisis, driven by students feeling the need to showcase a new outfit for each game, contributes to roughly 92 millions tons of clothing waste each year. According to Royal Waste Services, rapidly shifting trends cause many clothing items to become quickly outdated and discarded in landfills instead of being recycled or repurposed.
Miars tracks the trends, ensuring each piece bought will be appreciated, hoping to counter this throwaway culture. She also pays close attention to what pieces get sold and which do not, to better select in the future. After questioning her plans to reduce student reliance on fast fashion brands for gameday attire, Miars said, “It may be hard to change the culture of buying new clothes for each game day, but I hope to make Thrifted University so large that people choose to buy their clothes from me and therefore buy second-hand.”
Miars maintains environmentally friendly practices by reducing waste. She often has a “free” basket at her pop-up shops, consciously tracking unsold items to ensure it is given to a buyer that will use it. This approach sets Thrifted University apart from its peers like Goodwill and Savers. The Washington Post found that only “38 to 48% of secondhand clothing are sold through traditional retail channels. Major thrift stores, like Goodwill, often offload billions of tons of unsold clothing to “salvage businesses” operating “nationally and globally,” making it challenging to trace where these items ultimately go.
Even in her pop up events, a popular form of Miar’s sales and marketing, Miars buys all of her supplies second-hand, including her clothing racks that she bought from an old, closing thrift store. Even with online purchases, Miars often uses compostable shipping material in order to minimize waste.
The students behind the success
Each semester Miars, selects a fresh, new group of student ambassadors to help market, plan events, and raise awareness about the company and its message. Miars, 24, joked about how she still understands college trends for now, but if she was 28 or 29 and still selling college fashion with no other help from students, it would seem “out of touch.” She enjoys hearing from the students and in return gives her company a “young, relatable image.”
Ambassadors receive $100 worth of store credit, a discount code to send to family and friends, and a marketing position to put on their resume. In return, the ambassadors have to post content each month, help at events, and spread information between students. Having a large variety of students from all different backgrounds helps showcase that everyone can wear and enjoy Miar’s clothes. Students can apply to join the ambassador program by going to the Thrifted University website, selecting the “Ambassador Application” and following the directions on the site. Applications reopened in November for the Winter 2025 semester.
A large, unlocked customer base Miars hopes to gain is the male student population, believing that her male ambassadors can create a large impact through posting content to their social media and spreading the word. Miars wants to show that everyone can enjoy Thrifted University and second hand shopping.
What’s next?
Miars envisions expanding Thrifted University beyond Ann Arbor. She is currently creating stock and locations at Michigan State University (her favorite school growing up) and the University of Wisconsin. She is also hopeful to expand her company to the west coast, particularly where she currently lives in Utah.
Although her main focus with Thrifted University is to create a profitable business, she would also like to add a non-profit style structure to increase awareness of sustainable shopping. Once her company is her sole focus (she is also working full-time as a consultant), she plans on expanding throughout the country by adding locations and stocking clothing for different Universities (UCLA, USC, Indiana University, etc.) and “replicating what I have built at the University of Michigan.”