Thrifting is like a maze. You navigate your way through the stores looking for a timeless blouse or a chic 2000s purse, only to find a pile of generic graphic tees after scrambling through several aisles. But although puzzling, there is a method to the madness in finding the right pieces and, most importantly, what to primarily look for when going to a thrift store.

Nobody has experienced real chaos until you arrive at the student kitchen on move-in day. Six people arrive within a few hours of each other, all clutching bags for life, and by the evening the flat owns four toasters, three colanders and not one tin opener. Someone has bought a candle. Someone else has brought an iron they will use precisely once.

There is a very specific kind of guilt that comes from opening a wardrobe stuffed with clothes and still feeling like you have nothing to wear. If that sounds familiar, you are not imagining it, and you are certainly not alone. One in three young women in the UK now consider an item of clothing “old” after wearing it just once or twice. Worn twice. Then binned, donated, or left to fossilise at the back of a drawer.