A Conversation With Dulce Hernandez Malagon, Secondhand Clothing Store Curator
On exploring culture through thrifting, styling apparel photoshoots, pricing items for resale, and prioritizing mental health
Based in Southern California, Dulce Hernandez Malagon is the owner of @oaxaquenita.curated, a secondhand clothing store on Instagram. She started her shop during the pandemic as a creative outlet and income generator. Earthy tones, natural materials, dreamy light, and pampas sprigs define her shop. Her sweet parakeet, Seymour, also makes frequent appearances on her grid. In a space mostly dominated by white women, Dulce uses her shop to get in touch with her Oaxacan roots, thereby educating and sharing generously about her culture with followers.
In the first interview of the year, Dulce (pronounced duel-say) shares about how she curates items and explores her Oaxacan (pronounced wah-HAH-kan) culture through the shop, why she prioritizes mental health, how she prices items for resale, and what it looks like behind the scenes to style apparel photoshoots.
What is your craft?
I am a thrifter, and I resell clothing on Instagram. I love focusing on natural fibers. I have a sensory issue, so I like being able to touch stuff. One of my favorite things to do is walk through a thrift store. I don’t normally go through every single thing on a rack. I just walk down the aisle and look for silk or linen, then I’ll touch it and check the tag to confirm the materials. I never go into the thrift store with something in mind, which is what everyone tells you not to do. Every time I go in and try to look for something specific, I stress myself out. It takes the fun out of thrifting, at least for me.
How did you get started? When did you decide to open a shop?
I used to thrift with my grandma. Growing up, I was raised by her because my parents were working all the time. When she took me to the park, I tended to lose a lot of my clothing somehow. I would be playing too much and forget where I left stuff. She’d realize it was gone once we got home. We’d go to the thrift store and find dupes. It’s just something she would do. As I grew up, I never really went back to thrift stores because in my family—we’re an immigrant family—thrifting meant you weren’t making it here. It meant you didn’t have your own money, so you had to rely on secondhand clothing. It always had a negative connotation within my family.
It wasn’t until right before the pandemic when I started seeing a few thrift shops pop up on my Instagram feed. Then during the pandemic, when everyone started buying plants, I saw thrift shops just as often as plant accounts. I started to rethink the negative connotation of secondhand because you can find such amazing stuff. I went thrifting for myself because my body was changing and I needed new clothes. I wanted to have a rotating closet, so that’s basically what I have now. I swap out things once I get tired of them.
Follow Dulce’s shop on Instagram, @oaxaquenita.curated, and turn on notifications for her account so you don’t miss the next collections.
You’re always really good about sharing when you’re taking a break and why. How can you tell you need a breather, and how do you take care of yourself once you recognize that?
I think it took me a little bit just because I was so invested in being able to make an income. That meant I had to put in so much time just to try to get a following or try to get people intrigued. It wasn’t until maybe 8 months into the shop that I realized it was too much. It took a really bad day personally and trying to run the shop. I was like, you know what, this is not worth my mental health. Nothing is. Now whenever I don’t feel great, because I have been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and OCD, I technically have an excuse to take a break. I know what I need. But also, I think that social media is very toxic. I realize I need a break when I’m scrolling and getting anxious. Or I see so many people doing all these amazing reels because that’s the new thing on Instagram. It isn’t for me. I’m going to reach followers the way I know how, and if it works, great. If it doesn’t, then oh well. I never really saw the shop as an end-all-be-all goal. I want to go back to school someday. But I’m just waiting until I’m at a point with my mental health and finances where I can step back from the shop.
When you go back to school, what will you study?
I would go back mostly because relying on Instagram is unstable financially. I do have a part-time job, but I don’t like putting myself in my job for longer than a few days because I know that’s not great for me, either. I love this shop, and it’s an outlet for me whenever I go thrifting. But I’m getting to the point in my life where I need school, I need something. Ideally, I was planning on doing a four-year program. I wanted to study cultural anthropology. I wanted that to be my chance to go back home to Oaxaca and study my people. But four years is such a long time for me, so I’m thinking about going back to school for a two-year certificate program. It just depends on if I find the program I like.
In what ways does your Oaxacan culture and heritage inspire or motivate your creative pursuits?
This is kind of hard for me. I love a lot of our traditional wear. In Oaxaca, everything is vibrant, natural fibers, and dyed with plants. I like to stick to natural fibers because I feel most comfortable in things that breathe. But when it comes to colors, I have a hard time with bright. I know why I do. I know it has a lot to do with my skin tone and not wanting to attract attention to myself. I feel other-ed when I’m in bright colors because it’s easy to spot me and see that maybe I don’t fit in a certain area or situation. That is a very real reason for me because I have had times in my life when I was verbally attacked, and my car has been hit a few times. I’ve been told to go home. I’m like, this is the only home I’ve ever known. I’m an immigrant child with DACA. I have to pay $800 every two years just to have a work permit. It’s really frustrating because I’m like, why don’t I take up more space when I’m literally paying for it?
One of the hardest things for me is when I find huipiles, or embroidered blouses and dresses. I have to stop myself from grabbing one. I feel guilty reselling anything traditional because the person who made it and spent so much time on it is not profiting off it by my resale. I don’t know. I take issue with it. I see other pages profiting off huaraches, our traditional sandals, and things like that. I hope that the money is going back to them somehow. I really wish that the clothing I brought into the shop was more of a resemblance of my culture, but I never want to say, “Buy from me just because I will bring you the closest thing from Oaxaca.” I just want you to know that you’re buying from a Oaxaqueña. I love my culture, but I don’t want to profit off it. It’s a really fine line.
Where and how do you find inspiration?
I tend to just look for stuff for myself. Or I take someone with me. I’ve been taking my partner with me and honestly, he has a great eye for things because I’ve been helping dress him for the last three years. He sees how his style and my style have changed. Sometimes he picks out one very specific thing that I would’ve never grabbed. I’ll do an entire drop off it, just to challenge myself. Sometimes I think of things my grandma would wear, like maxi shirts and blouses that were always cotton, collared, or ruffled. Also Seymour. I based an entire drop on his colors before. That was fun.
Take me behind the scenes. What does it look like to set up a photoshoot?
In my freshman or sophomore year of high school, so in 2009 or 2010, everyone was like, film photography is back. I bought myself a camera and started doing film photography, but never had the money to develop anything. I gave it up, but it was fun. When I started doing photography for my shop, I felt like I already had an idea of what I was looking for from behind a lens. The first drop I did, I taped up a sheet as my backdrop. It was up there for months with tons of tape. I would also go outside. I was living at my mom’s at the time, and I would have to first clean up all the dog’s poop. At some point, I just figured out there were corners in my room where I really loved the light. But it meant having to move my bed. So I would very strategically think to myself, “If you’re going to do multiple drops this month, you have to do them all now because you’re not going to want to keep moving this furniture.”
I also look up YouTube videos, like from Mango Street. They tell you how to work with lighting and other tips. Also, my partner is a photographer so he helps me a ton. He’s building up his lighting equipment because he wants to have a studio someday, and he lets me borrow a bunch of stuff sometimes. But I still don’t know how to use lighting no matter how many videos I watch. I like to go off natural light. Right now, the apartment I’m in only has one window. I’ve been timing the sun. The sun starts shining here at 2:15 PM. That means I have 40 minutes. After that, I have no light. I have to set up everything before. So I attach my phone to a stool. Then I’m in front of a mirror so I can see the reflection of my phone and what I’m photographing. I use a shutter button. Then I have all the clothes I’m styling piled onto one side and then the clothes that I’m done styling piled to the other. I also think about the order it will appear in my grid.
So much work! How do you decide prices to compensate yourself for your time and energy?
People want to shop with you if you’re transparent with your pricing. I’m going to tie this back, but I also work in the coffee industry. I am frustrated and always really angered when people don’t understand why a bag of beans is $18. I’m like, have you seen the size of these beans? Do you know that they were picked by hand? At the supermarket you can buy a bag of beans for $5 or $6. Some big coffee companies have started sharing about pricing and where that money is going. I realized I should probably start doing that with the shop.
If someone asks me how much something costs me, I’m going to tell them. I’m paying more for linen, cotton, and any natural fibers because the prices have gone up at thrift stores. As much as I want to be organized, I don’t have it in me to make spreadsheets. But I do like to just make sure that I’m getting back what I spent, my gas money, my time, and the cost for recyclable shipping materials. I also make sure that I’m paying myself. If something costs me $4 or $5, I normally end up putting a minimum wage on it. So I’d sell it for $20. That is my hour and any work I put into that hour. If it’s an item I know is going to be sought after, at that point I do price comparisons and set a reasonable price. I am still a secondhand store, and the point of my shop is to buy things at a lower cost than most places.
What’s something you’ve learned about yourself through the store and being a businesswoman?
I’m surprisingly a creative person. That wasn’t really big in my immigrant family. They don’t believe artistic abilities will get you anywhere. It was never nurtured. Through this shop, I’m nurturing my ability to draw and make color palettes. When I put everything on a rack, it looks like a small little painting. When it came to my logo, I didn’t want to use Canva. I wanted to draw something for myself and use my own creativity. I wanted to include my Oaxacan culture into my logo. I also struggled with that. In a first draft, I had a flower where the skull is. (Dulce swapped the skull out for a bird for spring.) My partner was like, “Why don’t you put a skull there?” A lot of people on Instagram are religious. I didn’t want them to see my culture as a negative thing. He was like, “But it’s yours and you have to put yourself in it.” He’s right: If people want to unfollow me for it, then fine. The shop has taught me that I’m a creative person and should be valued for who I am. I’ve never seen people more excited to talk to me about Oaxaca, the food I eat, and the things we make. Every time somebody asks, I feel so connected to my grandmother. I love that.
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