Vintage renewal fashion and thrifting, has become popular in recent years due to hearing and learning more about climate change through the media. Vintage apparel offers the buyer a diverse range of ready-made and pre-loved clothing. Higher-quality materials are used so will last if taken good care of. Thrifting is similar as, it provides pre-owned goods however this can be done on the cheap and regale a lower income demographic. Not all clothing is second-hand, but have instead just been given away due to increased knowledge about sustainability or simply needing more space in the wardrobe. Globally, this idea has increased in popularity due to it becoming a digital media trend to create videos doing things such as thrift challenges. Clothes which we see influencers wearing are normally expensive and naturally their followers become inspired by their style. They then find the budget alternatives of what they originally wear.
This essay highlights the need to educate the eco-friendly and ethical consumer on the ecological and social benefits of purchasing vintage and pre-loved pieces. Fast fashion is a global trend that has got worryingly faster over recent years – forcing brands to endorse a constant harmful cycle of designing & manufacturing clothes at underdeveloped countries. In their eyes, this supports the cost of mass production and that’s all that matters. Retailers such as, Zara, H&M, UNIQLO, Primark, Fashion Nova, and New Look all neglected and oppressed their employees working conditions and environmental costs. The demand for clothes every season, or every-time a trend emerges has increased quickly over the past few years. Purchasing these items for a few wears results in ‘around 300,000 tonnes of textile waste ending up in household black bins every year, sent to landfill or incinerators. Less than 1% of material used to produce clothing is recycled into new clothing at the end of its life.’ (Environmental Audit Committee, 2019)
Online influencers have been doing challenges, which involve going to charity or thrift shops with a budget and finding outfits, in hopes of turning thrifting from a hobby to a lifestyle. These influencers are typically young, white, female, university-educated, and live in either Europe, Australia or North America. Continuing with this, they can earn enough money from ads and sponsorships to make blogging a full-time job. ‘As a result, successful lifestyle blogs can inevitably be platforms for self promotion.’ O’Brien, Abigail. (2018, pp. 17-18) Gen Z have become a major advocate for climate change and have turned into a cohort of activists. This motive has inspired the retailer Urban Outfitters who now have a section in store, displaying reworked and vintage clothing. Primark then followed and opened a vintage section in one of their stores in London – with more to follow. It is expected that many other retailers will cotton on due to the high demand of ethical and sustainable clothing. However, some still dispute to our chain retailers having a vintage department as it results in smaller businesses losing revenue and they think that these companies should be boycotted due to the majority of their clothes being made in factories with terrible working conditions and absurd low wages.
Buying, upcycling and wearing second-hand clothes has become increasingly popular over the last few years – especially during Covid-19 where people were bored of their clothes and it wasn’t as easy to access new clothes. At a time where we were house-bound and restricted for so long, what else were we to start doing? Everyone had the time so was forced to ponder on what matters and recognising the value of what they have. People were on their phones all day – speaking to others about what to do with their time, watching tiktoks of people upcycling or listening to podcasts about peoples experiences during this disaster and what they’re doing to improve how they feel. At first, this was all to occupy the mind and many people thought, why not do something to benefit the planet when things out of our control are tearing it apart. This ideology spread around the world and I think is one of the other reasons why thrifting has become so big over recent years.
However in certain social groups or countries like Indonesia, there is a stigma around thrifting, as society looks down on people who can only afford thrift stores. They are the people who contribute to putting ’92 billion tonnes of garments in landfills’ (Earth.org, 2022) and are responsible for ‘10% of global carbon emissions’ (Earth.org, 2022) . 10% of global carbon emissions is equivalent to roughly all of the United States’ carbon emissions. That includes all of their electricity, heat, transport, building, manufacturing, agriculture and many more. Ultimately, erasing this would keep the world keep going for longer. ‘The UN has launched the Alliance for Sustainable Fashion to address the damages caused by fast fashion. It is seeking to ‘halt the environmentally and socially destructive practices of fashion.’ (Earth.org, 2022) Through this, the UN will reduce fast fashions negative environmental and social impacts and will work towards a number of sustainable development goals.
In conclusion, the most obvious finding to emerge from this study is that, vintage fashion and thrifting has taken over people’s lives across the globe, due to the way that it has been communicated across the media during recent years. As we dedicated more time listening to science (knowing that the world is quickly deteriorating due to our actions) people learnt that it was essential to help as much as we can and this was portrayed through every possible medium. However, certain social groups in third world or developing countries disapproved of this as they can’t necessarily keep up to date with the newest posts, publications and science to account for what is destroying our home. Instead, they can understandably only base their values and opinions off of what is traditional and therefore responding how others do around them.
References:
Earth.org. (2022). Fast Fashion and Its Environmental Impact. Available at: https://earth.org/fast-fashions-detrimental-effect-on-the-environment/
Environmental Audit Committee. (2019). Fixing fashion: clothing consumption and sustainability. UK PARLIAMENT. Available at: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmenvaud/1952/report-summary.html [Accessed 16 January 2023]
O’Brien, Abigail. (2018) Green Looks Good on You: The Rhetoric and Moral Identity of Conscious Consumption Blogs. [Online]. Scripps Senior Theses. 1161. Available from: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1161 (Accessed 16 January 2023)
5 minutes to persuade YOU to thrift Your clothing
https://youtu.be/OkFe6MbsWWZI
