Fashion Terms — the Apparel Search fashion terminology directory
Credential clothing is clothing which has been donated but not yet sorted or graded. Credential clothing can contain a mix of apparel, shoes and accessories — and possibly other miscellaneous items. It is unsorted, untouched clothing donations, left in the exact condition they were in when received from the person providing the donation. The items are typically dropped off in bags to charity organizations and recycling companies, and credential clothing is often collected in drop boxes. This page defines the term — the starting point of the used clothing trade — and links to clothing recycling.
Credential clothing is clothing which has been donated but not yet sorted or graded. Credential clothing can contain a mix of apparel, shoes, and accessories (and possibly other miscellaneous items).
It is unsorted, untouched clothing donations which are left in the exact condition as it was when received from the person providing the donation. The items donated are typically dropped off in bags to charity organizations and recycling companies. Credential clothing is often collected in drop boxes (donation bins) which are placed throughout different communities. Many bins are dispersed in some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in hopes to gather fine quality garments. The goal of credential clothing is to be packed in original plastic bags and that no trash or wet clothing be incorporated within.
Not all recycled clothing is of credential grade. Again, credential clothing, also called “original clothing,” is clothing that people drop off into clothing collection bins, and are sold to distributors without it being graded.
The quality of credential clothing may be of a higher grade than if the bags have been opened and graded. Graders know how to pick out the top grade items of clothing, shoes (which have a higher value), as well as the valuable vintage items, and then sell them individually at a higher price. If those items have been removed from the bags, the end distributor does not have the opportunity to pick out those items themselves. Credential clothing typically gets a higher price at market than graded used clothing for this reason.
Every donated garment begins its second life as credential clothing, whether or not the donor ever hears the term. The bag dropped at a charity door or into a collection box is, in trade language, credential: unsorted, ungraded and untouched. Its value to the charities and recycling companies that collect it lies precisely in that untouched state — a credential bale or bag contains the full, honest mixture of what the public donates, from nearly new branded clothing to worn textiles fit only for recycling, and experienced buyers price it as a mixture, knowing the proportions from long practice.
From the collection point, the chain divides. Charities sort first for their own shops and programs, and surplus credential clothing is sold on — by weight, still unsorted — to graders whose warehouses do the detailed sorting into grades and categories for resale markets at home and abroad, and into recycling streams for what cannot be worn again. Understanding the term explains several things donors wonder about: why collection boxes are operated by recycling companies as well as charities, why donated clothing travels so far, and why the industry insists that even a worn-out garment has a place in the stream — as credential clothing, everything is feedstock for one grade or another.
Donated clothing that has not yet been sorted or graded: a mix of apparel, shoes and accessories in the exact, untouched condition in which the donor gave it, typically bagged and collected through drop boxes by charities and recycling companies.
Because the clothing's credential is its origin: it comes directly from donors, unpicked and ungraded, so buyers of credential clothing are buying the genuine donation stream — with all its mixture of value — rather than a pre-sorted selection. That untouched state is the term's whole meaning.
It enters the sorting and grading stream: wearable clothing is separated for resale or charitable distribution, and the rest flows to the recycling and used clothing trades covered by the terms linked from the donations and recycling pages.