With Argentina in its worst economic crisis in decades, shopping for clothes has become more complicated. "You can't just go to the mall and buy something you like as you did before," said Aylen Chiclana, 22, a student in Buenos Aires. "Today prices are unthinkable." Inflation exceeds 140%, Reuters reports. A pair of new jeans, for example, costs more than twice what it did a year ago and would consume more than one-third of the monthly national minimum wage. The high prices are pushing people to secondhand markets—to buy and sell.
A semi-retired teacher, 62, said goes with her husband to a fair on weekends to sell their old clothes to generate income. "We have our jobs but we need to come to the fair," Beatriz Lauricio said. When bad weather forced its cancellation one weekend, she said, the family finances "collapsed." Economists attribute the crisis to money printing and a lack of confidence in the peso, per Reuters; 40% of the population lives in poverty, and inflation has been climbing steadily. The issue is a major one in the presidential race; runoff voting is Sunday.
A 68-year-old retiree whose income consists of a pension and about a dollar an hour for sewing work, said she wouldn't be able to buy clothes if it weren't for the fairs. "We simply can't buy new things," María Teresa Ortiz said. "You can't buy new sneakers, you can't buy new flip-flops, you can't buy new jeans, you can't buy a shirt or a T-shirt either. So you have to look for them at the fairs." (More Argentina stories.)
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