From iStock.com
The craze for “vintage” apparel that emerged when 1960s fashion took off. Wearing and exchanging used garments had various meanings before this. The growing rate of fashion change beginning in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as well as the expansion of consumer availability of these trends, provided strong support for all levels of trade in antique clothes. The expansion in commerce of used clothes was gradual as the supply of these commodities rose along with the economic market for fashion.
The first “ragpickers” gathered things that others had thrown away and put them back into the economy. The ragpicker joined forces with other outsiders or lower-class people as a result. By its associations with this socioeconomic underclass, Karl Marx would eventually establish the creative bohemian worldview. He thought that bohemians were vagabonds whose situation was determined by economic need or—more importantly—romantic interpretation. knowledge antique clothes requires a knowledge of the tension between need and choice.
A measure of social standing
The correlation between old clothes and fashion made what one wore a clear indicator of one’s social standing; for example, the shape and fabric of a jacket from a time too recent to be considered trendy or classic clearly suggested that the wearer was from the lower classes. People were keenly conscious of the stigma. The “make do and mend” mentality enabled the lower classes to portray wearing used clothing as frugal and, during a war, patriotic. However, the ancient attire that was passed down via generations was highly unique. It was most definitely only sometimes bought. Then, those who bought used clothing were seen to be actors, the poor, or people trying to appear to have greater social rank, and as a result, they were sometimes viewed with the same suspicion as the people who sold them the clothes.
Old clothes had not been frequently sold inside standard retailing contexts until the middle of the 1960s; its dealers preferred market stalls, auctions, or pawnbrokers as places to sell. Old clothes sales have historically been perceived in diametrically opposing ways: as a way for criminals to launder money, as excellent business, and, with the development of charity stores, as a way for people to do good deeds. The majority of British cities had sizable warehouses that dispersed used clothing, and many of them still have sizable export markets today despite the decline in commerce in the late 20th century. As the market for used clothing declined, the custom of wearing it increased and was dubbed “vintage,” shifting from the marketplace to an upper-class shop.
London Vintage
Since the early 1970s, clothing has been consistently sold in London as vintage. The work of designers like Martin Margiela, Russell Sage, Alice Temperley, and Jessica Ogden predates in practice (though perhaps not in concept) the listing of various antique businesses in shopping guides from the mid-1970s, some of which provide in-house tailoring using old fabric. The apparel was mostly worn by customers who were portraying a rebellious challenge to the mores and propriety of earlier generations, even if it was still not entirely accepted as a practice.
Vintage was a fruitful symbol for bohemian morals and practice, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, due to the dichotomy between thrift and economy on the one hand, and rebellious conduct on the other. The anti-consumerism of the hippie way of life was sartorially represented through the use of vintage clothing. This interpretation persisted in the next decades, as seen by the Women’s Environmental Network’s political position in the 1990s as well as the creations of designers like Helen Storey, Komodo, and to some extent, Vivienne Westwood and the Punk movement.
The 21st century’s trends
The fashion for vintage clothes in the twenty-first century has its origins more especially in bohemianism, in the display of uniqueness, and in an eliteism that is creative rather than aristocratic. Specialty boutique stores in London have grown significantly in stature and notoriety. Several of these (Virginia, Sheila Cook, Steinberg, and Tolkein) are frequently cited and recognized in fashion publications, and a consistent stream of celebrities mention them in “my favorite store/best-kept secret” questionnaires in Sunday supplements. The dominance of antique merchants in fashion news is noticeable both in Europe and North America. Resurrection and Mayle’s owners in New York and Decades and Lily’s owners in Los Angeles are regarded as significant “women of fashion” and celebrities’ go-to costumers. The diverse look that Patricia Fields, a stylist and antique merchant, gave Sarah Jessica Parker’s character Carrie in the HBO sitcom Sex and the City is in large part responsible for the vintage resurgence in the United States.
Retailers
Retailers like Selfridges, TopShop, and Jigsaw in London; A.P.C. in France; Barneys and Henri Bendel in New York; and others have all caught on to the trend and included vintage offerings or collections with vintage inspiration to their product lines. Wearing vintage has developed into a distinctive emblem of cultural and economic wealth that favours the person since it is special, costly, and so on. More than money, free time must be committed to the time-consuming process of looking for, locating, mending, and selling used clothing. Those with affluence or who had flexible jobs—which were typically creative in nature—had access to this leisure time throughout the later part of the 20th century and beyond. The antique clothing’s individuality also implies that the wearer is distinct from the increasingly and blatantly superficial process of fashion.
Hollywood
It’s interesting how many Hollywood stars have taken to wearing antique clothing since it’s out of the ordinary and suggests either anti-consumerism or personal preference. Actresses associated with indie film, like Chloe Sevigny, seem to have embraced the “trash” style to set themselves apart from the mainstream. Imitation of Christ, Sevigny’s protégé designers, are proponents of an anticorporate mentality akin to Westwood’s in the early 1970s. In contrast, Nicole Kidman, one of the most well-known vintage-wearers in modern Hollywood, prefers to shop at stores that portray their merchandise as antique, timeless, and culturally valuable. This is done to highlight her sense of personal, unique style, which is supposedly sincere, authentic, and just as timeless as the clothes she prefers.
Nostalgic clothing
One of the most incisive arguments against vintage is that it is unfavorably nostalgic, especially when it comes to how it affects modern design. Alongside the merchants, a group of designers has become more interested in retro clothes, whether directly by repurposing discarded fabrics or items of clothing or inadvertently by plundering the archives of dress history to produce a modernized antiquity for the post-modern customer. Many well-known fashion designers, including Ralph Lauren, John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Donna Karan, and Miuccia Prada, are known to have made significant investments in antique apparel. Since the works are chosen with the current in mind, it is not always a sentimental procedure. It is important to note that what revitalizes the memories and meanings the clothing contains—rather than the garment itself—is its placement in a current discourse and context.
