Colin Bradley
“I’ve been thrifting since I was like 12,” says Colin Bradley. “In middle school I was pulling up to Goodwill and, like, back-to-school eighth-grade shopping.”
He’s wearing an oversized gray blazer over a white button-down. A blood-red necktie perfectly matches his hair, which is in pigtails. While his closet is overflowing with pants of various fabrics, patterns and fits, his most recent obsession is pleated skirts. The one he has on now is made of gray wool, and looks like it might have been someone’s school uniform prior to its time lying hidden among the racks of Music City Thrift.
Colin Bradley
“Growing up queer, I thought that my queerness was something that detracted from who I was,” he says. “But once I fully accepted that, I realized it was my greatest strength. In terms of fashion, it allowed me to explore fashion, regardless of gender norms and conventions. And I guess it just helped me establish a new attitude and approach to fashion where I didn’t really care about others’ opinions, and their outdated views.”
“Some of y’all aren’t ready for this conversation, but the men’s section is always trash,” Bradley says in a TikTok post chronicling a recent trip to Goodwill. The mantra is often repeated on his increasingly popular @deathbythrifting account, which has north of 232,000 followers. His content centers on his thrift-store trips, edits he makes to clothing using a Brother sewing machine and updates on his unending mission to outfit every corner of his home in secondhand finds.
Colin Bradley
His page was inspired by the fashion YouTube videos he watched as a kid, which he cites as part of the reason he can’t help visiting thrift stores two to three times a week. And with the growing popularity of secondhand shopping, he hopes his page can help guide people through their journeys crafting their own unique styles.
“Anyone who’s my age or younger seems to be all about mismatching things from different places,” he says. “It’s uniquely theirs because they are mixing all these different things.”
Photos by Angelina Castillo at Colin Bradley's home
Checking out Nashville’s best street style, plus a look at our vintage scene and some of the city’s most stylish residents
