Culture

Anna Shah. Photo by Maya Levine. Anna Shah. Photo by Maya Levine.

Anna Shah’s Thrift Store POP! Is Innovating Sustainable Fashion at GW + Online

August 3, 2023 @ 4:00pm |

We caught up with George Washington University student Anna Shah about her thrift store POP! and how its helping provide affordable and sustainable fashion to students nationwide. 

Shah started POP!, a student-run thrift store at GW to reduce fast fashion on campuses, and it quickly blossomed into an online shop with national reach.

District Fray: You’ve built an amazing brand focused on fashion sustainability on university campuses. What’s next for the business post-graduation?
Anna Shah: We are so proud of the impact on GW’s campus but refuse to stop here. In September 2022, we launched our e-commerce business to provide access to affordable and curated secondhand fashion to students nationwide. Post-graduation, we plan to partner with universities for sourcing in order to close the fashion loop on college campuses.

How do you balance your studies with the business, your social life and everything else going on?
I study international business with minors in sustainability and German. I balance my life by setting my top three priorities for the day and working my way through them one by one. No matter how busy I am, I try to include self-care in my priorities list, because to be successful you need to stay sane.

In what way does D.C. play in your work? How will you carry that forward as the business grows and develops?
When I first moved to D.C., I found myself in a sustainable fashion desert. I lacked access to affordable and sustainable fashion nearby. This was the original reason we started POP! LLC: to become an oasis, specifically for college students susceptible to fast fashion. Upon solving this problem, we gained community-wide support from the Textile Museum, the DC Sustainable Fashion Collective, The Rounds and more, which was critical to our growth.

Learn more about POP! LLC at popthriftstore.com and follow them on Instagram @popthriftstore.

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Abi Newhouse is a writer based in Washington, D.C. A recent MFA graduate from George Mason University, her work can be found in The American Scholar, Mud Season Review, and Sediments Literary-Arts Journal, among others.