by Iris Winston
“Find a job you enjoy and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
While there is some dispute about the origin of this dictum, its wisdom is clear. Just ask educator, poet and artist Judith Robertson how she feels about her new career in selling pre-loved fashions through the online platform Poshmark Canada.
“I’m really loving what I’m doing because it has plummeted me into the world of fashion and design,” she says. And, because of my background in university education, I love to go deeply into a subject.
Her career in education spanned 30-plus years, as a school teacher, an educational consultant and a university professor, culminating in a full professorship in the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Education. By the time she retired from academic life, she had won the prestigious Award for Excellence in Teaching five times.
After her retirement, she turned to artistic endeavours, first as a published poet and later as a painter. Sadly, medical issues intervened. She was diagnosed with meningioma, a type of brain tumor more common in women.
“I had my first craniotomy in 2015 and more or less sailed through it,” says Judith. “I was 64 years old and the recovery time was very fast.”
Six years later, the cancer recurred. The heavy radiation treatment following her first surgery had weakened the vascular system to the brain and made the second surgery more dangerous. A week after the operation she had an ischemic stroke, which left her partially paralyzed.
From this point on, she has spent much of her time in a wheelchair. But, with the constant support of her husband, Allan, she found the ability to fight back, and to focus on what she could do, rather than grieve over what she had lost. That inner strength led her to painting and success as an artist.
Then came another setback. “I couldn’t paint any longer because I couldn’t do it safely with one arm and half of my body paralyzed. There was a huge sadness and deep grieving over another loss.”
But, as before, Judith found a way to move on by turning to a long-time appreciation of fashionable clothing.
“I had long been a clothing thrifter for reasons of economy and sustainability,” she says, noting that her first acquaintance with Poshmark was as a buyer. Now it was to be her avenue for selling. “When you’re in a wheelchair, you dress differently than when you’re walking. I decided I needed to capitalize on the wardrobe that I had. I needed to purge and keep alive some kind of passion, particularly in the winter when it is very treacherous to go outside in a wheelchair. I’ve just thrown myself into it with relative success.”
Stage one of the process is for Judith to gather pieces of clothing, accessories and jewellery that she no longer wears. Details of measurement, together with photographs and descriptions of the items are then provided and posted on Judith’s site (http://poshmark.ca/closet/judithrobert261).
“The really fun part,” she says, “is doing the write-up. I check the provenance and make sure that all the details are right. There’s a lot of learning, but it’s very exciting. I love being thoughtful about the work that I do and I love clothing. And now that I’m selling, I’m not buying much.”
As Judith writes on the website, the pieces she is selling display “75 years of style…From my salad days of global mobility to life as a hemiplegic fashionista, my eye for the avant-garde remains unchanged.”
There are still moments of despair, she admits. “But less so if I’m involved in something that brings me joy, as all my careers have done. Now that I’ve discovered I have a bit of a head for the business end, I’ll continue — unless there’s another pivot in store for me.”
Poshmark, founded in California in May 2011, expanded to Canada in 2019 and is now a growing presence in Australia. At this time, there are 80 million Poshmark users globally, with more than eight million of them sellers.
According to a recent article in the industry publication Business of Fashion, the second-hand fashion market is expected to grow at least twice as fast as new retail over the next year.
The increasing popularity of resale augurs well for Judith’s future in fashion.
