The e-commerce company known as Depop connects fashionable buyers and sellers daily, housing secondhand clothing pieces, trendy accessories and other eclectic items that can fit into anyone’s personal style. For UNC students Savannah Matthews and Ava West, Depop is not just a site to find cute, trendy clothes, but a space where they combine their marketing expertise and love for fashion to bring creative visions to life.
Matthews and West are both college ambassadors for Depop, meaning they are in charge of programming events for the community that promote the platform. Matthews, who is a media and journalism major, applied and got chosen for the role after hearing about the ambassador program through a notification on the app. Additionally, last semester she was selected to be an intern with the company this upcoming summer.
Matthews was extremely excited to get the chance to work with the company, having been a longtime user of Depop since 2019. She still frequently finds new items on the platform to expand her personal style, ranging from CDs to unique handmade items.
“I just love that about fashion," she said. "It's so personalized. With the hyper individualization that's happening so much, especially online, thrifting is a great way to convey that through your fashion, because it's the best way to find something representative of yourself that nobody else will have.”
Depop’s environmentally conscious focus is something that she said resonated with her, especially as a student interested in working with fashion companies with sustainable practices.
Each semester, ambassadors are required to organize eight events, also called activations. There are a wide range of activations that ambassadors take on throughout the school year, including fun thrift swaps and seminars educating community members about sustainable wardrobes.
Much of the planning is left to the artistic freedom of the ambassadors, and as such, Matthews has organized collaborations with a variety of other clubs on campus. One past event she planned was a collaboration with UNC’s environmental service fraternity, Epsilon Eta. In upcycling workshops, participants learn how to repurpose materials and turn them into new pieces through sewing and patchwork.
Balancing ambassador duties with academic responsibilities can sometimes prove to be a challenge. However, for West, who is a double major in advertising and public relations and communications, it has helped reinforce important skills like time management and adaptability, which are highly valuable in the business and marketing spaces she is looking to break into in the future.
"It's just nice to be working with a brand that I've loved for so long, and they recognize me and my work and also my work ethic," she said. "The perks: I get to work with clubs on campus and meet people that I've never met before, obviously, especially like-minded people that are into fashion."
