By Alexis Dalton
When I was in elementary school, I was obsessed with making slime. So obsessed, in fact, that I made an Instagram account to sell the slime. Though that was a little strange at the time, these days, people have Instagram accounts for everything. Sharing recipes, selling art, and, in the case of junior Celine Areu, selling her own clothes.
Celine and her cousin Ashlyn Areu, who attends Campbell High School, have an account together with the username @ashcels where they sell and rent clothes from their closet. “We have a ton of clothes that we just don’t wear or that we bought and don’t want anymore,” Celine explained. “So we just post pictures of them to sell or rent.”
They started their account because they saw a lot of selling accounts become popular. Celine recalls the night they made their account. “We were bored and were like, ‘We have a ton of clothes we could sell.’” Since that one night, @ashcels has become pretty popular, reaching more than 500 followers.
But these clothing-selling accounts are not just a high school thing. @athens_closet__ is an account run by students at the University of Georgia. Celene definitely sees herself continuing this account in college. She says it’s “a great way to make money and especially because people needed a bunch of dresses for formals.” As someone who has rented clothes before, it’s way easier on the wallet to just rent a dress for the weekend instead of buying a dress I will only wear once.
But there’s more that goes into this business than just posting clothes. To start, they try to make their account look “cleaner.” Celine does her best to use the clothing’s original photo from the website she got it from or a picture of herself wearing the clothes. “Depending on what it is, it’s better to take a picture of it on versus just laying it down on something,” she said.
They also have to strategically price the clothes. Celine told me that if it’s too expensive people won’t buy it. “If it’s something that is originally expensive, typically we’ll put that you can rent it so we don’t have to sell it at a really high price,” she explained. She added that it really depends on the brand, whether it has tags still attached, and if it’s ever been worn.
Thankfully, Celine has never had to deal with a bad customer. “One time someone texted me that they were picking their clothes up in five minutes,” she laughed. “I wasn’t even home… people need to tell me to put it in the mailbox before they try to pick it up.”
So if you want some new clothes for summer vacation, @ashcels is the place to look. Just make sure you let Celine know you’re coming before rummaging through her mailbox.
