Bucktooth is a collective started by three friends (Emily, Emma, and Sarah) trying to make slow fashion a more inclusive space. Recently we got the chance to zoom with Emily and Emma (⅔ of this “anti-brand”) and talk with them about finding their own personal styles, sustainability, trend cycles, thrift tips and tricks, body image, TikTok, and more! ~Justine
JUSTINE: How do you guys know each other? Also, When and why did you start your depop?
EMMA: Not that any of this matters, but our depop used to be just a small account that my friend Sarah from college was using, and she had about 600 followers. So I said to Sarah, ‘what are we doing? Let's be famous.’ And so we started the depop my second year of college.
EMILY: Yeah, we're both from Temecula. We went to the same middle school and high school, but we didn't really interact. I was in eighth grade and Emma was a freshman. And I always thought she was so cool and beautiful. And older, you know, popular. And then once I moved out of my hometown, we ended up reconnecting through mutual friends.
And then she came and visited me at SLO (San Luis Obispo) a year and a half ago. She just said 'hey, do you want to maybe also sell clothes?' And that's what happened. So Emma and Sarah ran it first for the first three years and then right before the whole COVID thing went down I ended up joining in with them.
JUSTINE: How would you describe your personal style? and what are your go-to outfits?
EMMA: I like really obnoxious colors. Like that Blue/Orange that makes your eyes cross, yeah, really obnoxious. I love the 60s and 70s because they had really obnoxious colorways. And then also just plenty of t-shirts and sh*t. Yeah, like big shorts and jean shorts.
I feel my personal style has evolved because of the pandemic. And I think that's something that a lot of people have been experiencing. I’m just so much more lazy. And I have started letting go of having to be beautiful for the male gaze and wearing tight-fitting garments. And I started to realize, you don't have to be uncomfortable in your clothes anymore. Just wear what you want. And if you think it looks cute, then it looks cute on you period. Comfort throughout the pandemic has changed things a lot.
I feel the pandemic has made me more open to wearing risky outfits. In a weird way, I feel I've just become more confident being weird with my style because I've just been playing dress-up at home for a year and a half now.
EMILY: I dress in a lot of dark colors and edgy clothes. Kind of DIY, grungy stuff, but also I really love ironically wearing real tree camo trucker hats and shit. I truly think that I was from Tennessee in a past life. Shit because I just love trucks. Give me a T-shirt with a truck on it and I'm set every day, and then just kind of trashy Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan y2k kind of vibes on occasion.
My go to outfit is typically is some sort of mini-skirt. Usually, I have a kind of tennis skirt vibe or pencil skirt, body con. And then I love wearing a big t-shirt or a big hoodie. That's almost the same length as the skirt. And the skirt is peeking out underneath, especially if there's contrast between the colors. And it's another blend of really girly and really, tomboy shit together. I think that's it. And I always wear chunky heeled- combat boot type things because I'm really short like 5’1” and I don’t like that.
ASHA: What is your all-time favorite thrifted item or most used thrifted item?
EMILY: So I knew, right when I read the question, what my favorite item ever is. It's this shirt.
EMMA: It's so unpleasant.
EMILY: It's a rodeo American flag western shirt. And I love that. It's black and white. It has these black pearlescent buttons. Little snaps. I honestly think this is my most useful item too for everyday wear. I don't know. Do you ever put on a nice dress or cute skirt? Or a cute tiny top but you feel a little bit too exposed but you don't want to wear a jacket?
I live in Southern California- Even in the winter, it's still fairly warm. So, I don't want to wear a jacket-jacket. And then especially if I'm wearing a classic little black dress that accentuates my curves, I like to throw the kind of boxy, more masculine thing on top. So I divert the male gaze.
EMMA: So speaking of the male gaze this is just a massive full-body puffer and it's not reversible but I decided that it's reversible. So it is! I found it in France in the 1 euro bin. I am a shapeless amorphous form and no one should look at me. I wore it in France even though the weather did not warrant it. I could tell that there was another reseller there and he wanted it and I just thought, why do you care about this, it cannot possibly be worth money.
EMILY: The hood comes off, snaps back on it's so convenient.
EMILY: Also for usefulness. Just lots of little furniture decor-type pieces. There's this brand called Le Creuset, it's a kitchenware brand. And they make really nice enamel shit that will last your whole life, you know? Yesterday, I was thrifting and I found this $100 kettle that I've always wanted for $5. And it was in perfect condition. I think they didn't know what the brand was. And I was like, “Oh my god, I'm using this for the rest of my life. Thank you!”, because I could never justify spending 100 dollars on a teakettle. Yeah, so I haven't used it yet. But it will be my most useful.
WIG: For your Depop, do you guys prefer having a group Depop versus doing it on your own?
EMILY: 100% I think it's super nice to be a group because there's external accountability with it. And if one of us misses a message or something another person will send a screenshot saying hey, someone's asking this question, you should respond to it.
And then also, there's been periods of time, where someone has to take a few days off, or a week off for whatever reason, especially around the holidays, and it's nice to not have to completely close the shop down in those instances. And the trust that I have in Emma and Sarah to let you take over and keep things running if I have to step back is super nice as well.
EMMA: Yeah. 100%. Agree. I really would recommend if I can to any Depop seller, any top seller to either hire someone which sucks because then money makes things different, Or to work with a partner. And I think it's way better that way. We are each other's secretaries kind of to help each other out.
JUSTINE: Where do you guys source your clothes? Do you have any tips for finding good vintage items? How do you know if it's worth it, or what to leave there?
EMILY: I met this guy on eBay and I messaged him, 'Hey, If I got all these things, would you throw me a special price?' And he was down and then he ends up sending me the box of stuff and wrote his number in the box and said 'if you need more text me.' In my head, I'm thinking 'this is some sick freak whos old and scary.' And he ended up being this kid who lives in Austin, Texas. He's around my age and he’s just super cool. Like I would be friends with him. He's really, really good at finding dope vintage t-shirts. He can always tell the exact age and long backstory of each one of them. He's great at that research.
Then for identifying vintage the easiest one to look for is MADE in USA. Because unless it's one of those new sustainable indie brands, rarely any garment is made in USA anymore. It doesn't always mean it's 100% vintage, but mostly, it's older than the 2000s. First look at the tag. If it says MADE in Korea, it's possibly from the 80s and 90s, because not a lot of stuff is made in Korea anymore. If it has a UNION TAG, it's absolutely vintage.
And then if you want to get really crazy, you can look at the specific design and color of that tag and just type in a serial number on a tab. So in the store, basically I'll look through racks and see what I think is interesting and cool. And then if it's interesting and cool, and it has the made in USA, or has a union tag, or if it just feels really high quality and it looks kind of old, it's mostly likely vintage. And you can do sleuthing later and find out if it is. And then for research, the best thing I've done is this thing called the RN calculator.
Basically, the FTC issues a five-digit number to be put on every care tag or garment. Those numbers change every year, I think and they go in chronological order. So if you have that number, you can reverse search, know where the garment is from, who made it, and the rough time range that it was made.
JUSTINE: Another question we wanted to address is about your thoughts on the fast-paced trend-cycle, and I know that you've discussed that before on Tik Tok, but I'd just love to hear more about what you think about how fast trends are cycling and what you think about the future of that?
EMILY: For me, the more that I started thrifting and stopped buying fast fashion clothes, that's when I really started to develop my personal style, but also with the fast-paced trend cycle, I feel it's, it gets harder to sort of stay true to style and I am constantly questioning, do I actually like this? Or do I only like this because everyone else also likes this? Am I gonna wear this even when everybody hates it in two weeks and has moved onto the next thing?
EMMA: Okay, so I completely relate to what you're saying, and in terms of selecting my own clothes I've asked myself those same questions...is this gonna be cool a month from now or whatever. Because of that fear that whatever I'm wearing is going to be out of trend in seven days, I find myself now gravitating more to things that fit my body really well and make me feel comfortable and accentuate the features that I want to accentuate as opposed to specific patterns or cuts or colors or whatever. And I think that trying to escape the grasp of the rapid trend cycle has made my style a lot more eclectic
And then also one thing I learned from Old Loser in Brooklyn on TikTok was 'What did you wear as a child?' So it's that inner child shit.'What did you fantasize about? Or what did you want to be wearing when you were a kid?' Yeah, so that's another really good tip. And I want people to know that because I felt it really helped me when I've been struggling with all of these future fast fashion cycles and trend cycles.
EMMA: We could stop manufacturing all clothing right now and still have enough for generations to come. I will say then the other side of the argument is I also think it's a great thing that people that want to make clothes and want to have businesses go do that and there's a lot of avenues and not they're not just taking the easy way out. Doing it in the cheapest and most destructive way.
JUSTINE: Yeah, and fashion is an outlet for people and it's a great way to just enjoy your life.
EMMA: Exactly. Yeah, so I'm not saying ban fast fashion, but-
Justine: Yes, definitely, there are so many moving parts and there are really multiple cons to every pro. For example, limited drops are normally seen as a sustainable thing because companies do not want to mass produce items but it also creates a scarcity mindset. So then people are thinking, “Oh I have to snatch this up really fast before it sells out and never returns.” So that is a problem too.
EMMA: There's always a scarcity mindset thing. And you could argue that I mean, I think it's a little bit different but at the same time people on depop that are selling secondhand or vintage there's also a scarcity mindset with things in our shop because we never have the same thing twice, although we aren't specifically saying this is a drop you'll never get it again, it's implied. You know, all vintage resale shops are guilty of this and I don't think it's a problem. I don't think it's a bad thing, but I think you can definitely exploit that fact.
JUSTINE: On TikTok especially you're very transparent about your own struggles with body image and how the retail environment a lot of the time contributes to that. So we just wanted to ask what's it like opening up to viewers and just social media in general about that and being vulnerable?
EMMA: Yeah, there are two things I would like to address with that. One of which is I really struggle with perpetuating ideals on our own Depop on a daily basis, not even just on social media, but when I pose, I pose for clothes, I try to accentuate my best features, you know, best, whatever. And it really frustrates me and I've made a few posts, literally on TikTok about Depopping, saying here's the post, pictures of me unposed, and candid pictures of me in the garment you're about to see, just because I just hate it.
It breaks my heart to think that there are girls out there who want to look like me, but I don't even look like that. Yes, we know all of this. And, honestly, I have so much privilege that goes unspoken for my whiteness and my fitness, and my size body. And so I'm constantly pulling myself apart trying to figure out how it literally directly financially benefits me to continue to contort my body into that shape. It literally benefits me! What can I say? It helped me buy groceries because people perceive a garment on me? Yeah, because of that.
Listen to the full conversation here:
Asha, Justine, and Sara are all avid (addicted) depop shoppers and long-term bucktooth fans as well as withitgirl contributors.
See more of bucktooth on:
depop @bucktooth, tiktok @shop_bucktooth, and instagram @bucktooth_hq
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