themontanaexperience

About

Not experiences or videos about the state of Montana the state, but social media built by Montana Sullivan, who curates vintage clothing as well as insights into how and what she does as a vintage clothing retailer. She has a YoutTube channel with 10,000 subscribers, and bigger followings on TikTok, with 140,000 followers, and Instagram, with 30,000 followers.

Before fame

After graduating from the University of New Hampshire with a major in marketing and minor in art, her internship for a Rockland, Massachusetts remediation firm wasn't paying enough. So she started selling clothes on Instagram. The extra money and the added allure of being able to do something more in line with how she wanted to be in the world gave her the confidence to start a modeling career and, in time, sell vintage clothes full-time.  

Trivia

When the pandemic hit, Sullivan didn't have thrift stores to go to, so she started styling herself in the vintage clothes she kept for herself. And morphed into a bit of a stylist. She soon turned into a proselytizer for used, vintage, and reworked goods. Hence, her ethical stance on wearing and selling what she does. One of her goals is to inspire others to shop secondhand and question where their clothes are coming from--that's the ethical part of her business. As she told InputMag.com: "More people thrifting is definitely a good thing," she said. "A lot of people say that it's taking away from others, but only a very small percentage of clothing that gets donated in the U.S. actually gets put out onto the sales floor."And according to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans generate 16 million tons of textile waste each year, over 60% of which ends up in a landfill and almost 20% gets incinerated. Only 14% gets recycled, going to thrift stores or being reused and reworked by influencers like Sullivan.

Family life

She's one of Next Collective's influencers, and it was her mother, who likes to quilt and sew, who inspired Sullivan to rework thrifted pieces in her own way.

Associated with

Sullivan is one of several TikTok stars making a living reselling clothes via social media, another of whom is Macy Eleni. In fact, according to a report from the resale app thredUP, online resale and traditional thrifting are set to boom by over 400 percent over the next several years.