When it comes to fashion, we didn’t always have a fetish for newness.
Just ask historian Robyn Annear. The way she tells it in her new book, Nothing New: A History of Second-Hand, the Industrial Revolution changed everything. Before then most of humanity wore secondhand. “There was a limited amount of stuff to go around,” she says.
Once factory-made clothes came on the market, “people were encouraged to buy new stuff and to want new stuff and to afford new stuff,” Annear says. The quality wasn’t always amazing, but new clothes were marketed as respectable, hygienic, even patriotic. Of course, they were also on budget, and on-trend.
Because the new stuff looked so new, it made the old stuff look old. So secondhand became a charity case, fit only for those who had no other choice. In the popular western imagination, old clothes symbolised poverty or sloppiness or neglect. The taint of the op-shop lingered worse than the whiff of mothballs.
But now that stereotype has grown a bit old too. One recent study from the US online thrifting platform thredUP predicted that America’s secondhand apparel market will double in the five years from 2018 (US$24bn) to 2023 (US$51bn). This includes everything from op-shops, garage sales and flea markets to the higher end of vintage resale: curated boutiques online and off which might stock designer labels or otherwise covetable stuff.
So what makes secondhand work for 21st-century eyes used to novelty and mass production? The thredUP model is geared towards an Instagram-friendly, outfit of the day churn, where customers update their looks fast. Ownership doesn’t last forever. The secondhand outfit is purchased, worn, enjoyed, uploaded to socials, and then recycled back into the sales network.
Likewise the rise of Instagram resellers, such as Melbournes The Drobe, or curated clothing exchanges such as SWOP, bring some of that shiny newness to the act of shopping for secondhand threads. And more certainty to wearing them, too. Those of us who lack the confidence to style ourselves in an oppie outfit can shop pre-approved secondhand looks curated by people who are professionally far more modish.
Annear says we’re now in “peak secondhand”. Consumers are driven by a desire for sustainability, sure. But they’re also being tempted by barely worn wares. “A lot more people have twigged to the fact that the stuff in secondhand shops is barely used and not necessarily ‘old’,” she says.
Erin Lewis-Fitzgerald, a mending advocate and author of the upcoming book Modern Mending, seconds this: “When someone asks me, ‘Does it matter if someone wears secondhand clothes?’ The first thing I think is: is anyone gonna know?” Lewis-Fitzgerald’s specialty is visible mending – clothing repair using fancy stitches or patches that look intentional and stylish rather than frumpy and ‘make do’. Her aim, she says, is to make old clothes look better than new ones. Which is another way of making secondhand compete with fast fashion. Make it cooler, make it more individual.
“The interest is definitely growing very quickly around the world with what other people are doing with their mending,” Lewis-Fitzgerald says. Closer to home, the event marketing website Eventbrite reports that clothing swap events and repair courses have grown 296% over the past five years. Lewis-Fitzgerald’s advice to would-be remakers is to do your research, get creative and practise. She also acknowledges that not everyone has the time, patience or skills to mend their own clothes. That’s when your local clothing alterations and repair shop can come in handy. Or perhaps a helpful bottle of fabric dye.
In 2019 “secondhandness” is really a state of mind. Things that aren’t new aren’t necessarily old. And with a bit of clever stitching old things can be made better than new.
Only the wearer knows where that cute linen blouse or on-trend sports coat came from. Or whether that embellishment is hiding an ink stain that won’t come out. It’s up to us whether we broadcast that or not. Some of us claim a certain amount of social cred by crying “Oh this? It’s from Salvos!” Some of us aren’t quite there yet.
So how do we make secondhand work for us now? We shop smart, we mend and embellish and, if needed, we lie. The cult of newness hasn’t unravelled just yet. But its secondhand challenger isn’t looking too shabby, either.
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