Fast fashion. Slow fashion. Vintage fashion. Retro fashion. Antique fashion. Second-hand fashion. Fashion. Do a quick online search for anything clothing or fashion and the results are endless. The massive global fashion industry grows significantly each year, but we often turn a blind eye to the impact it has on our environment, our bodies, our economy, and the world at large.
Recycling and upcycling clothes, jewelry, shoes, and accessories through second-hand and vintage outlets has increased three times faster over the past couple of years than the overall industry. Why is that? Is it more eco-friendly and sustainable? Is “fast fashion” really so bad?
Let’s dig into what all these aspects of the items we drape on our bodies entail and what they truly mean for us, our present, our future and the future of our planet and people.
>> Fashionable Definitions
“Fast fashion” refers to cheap or affordable clothing mass-produced at low cost to bring the current trends and emerging runway fashions to retails stores as quickly as possible and while demand is at its peak. Fast fashion made its rise during the late 20th century as the Industrial Revolution replaced tailors and seamsters with sewing and textile machines.
Clothes-making became cheaper, easier, faster. Dress shops became sweatshops, and manufacturers optimized certain aspects of the supply chain for fast production while establishing low-cost garment workforces in South, Southeast and East Asia. Due to lucrativeness and the ceaseless demand for convenience and the lowest price, the fast fashion industry today continues to apply exploitative labor practices, waste excessively and ignore many of its negative environmental impacts. With minimal abatements, the fashion industry is responsible for 8-10% of global carbon emissions per year, as microplastics leach into water supplies and textile waste piles up in landfills.
“Slow” or “conscious” fashion is the answer to and opposer of fast fashion. Slow fashion brings awareness to what and who are responsible for pollution in fashion, condemns poor workmanship, emphasizes timeless, practical style over fleeting trends and seeks to support ethical labor, fair compensation, high-quality materials and construction, sustainable practices and products, and long-lasting, transparent relationship with consumers. It criticizes poor working conditions, deplorable ethics, low-quality clothing, toxic components, lack of intention and innovation, dire environmental impacts and excessive waste.
“Vintage fashion” is considered clothing that was manufactured 20-100 years ago and often exhibits recognizable styles of a certain decade. “Antique” clothing is considered anything older than 100 years, and its authenticity has to be verified. “Retro” clothing is an item that was made within the past 20 years that copies or incorporates elements of a distinctive vintage or antique style.
Whatever fashion you prefer and support with your wallet on any given day, you still have to recognize that current fashion culture is highly driven by consumerism and cultural acceptance in some way or another.
>> Fashionable Consumerism
Economic definitions aside, “consumerism” at its most basic roots is the pursuit and use of the necessities of life, like food, shelter and clothing, through work and other means. In the aftermath of WWI, this concept, particularly in Western cultures, progressed into the drive to consume and keep consuming stuff beyond necessity and subsistence in order to gain profit, status, success and the defining of one’s identity.
Today, the average American throws away more than 80 pounds of clothing each year, and mass-produced fast fashion is the norm. You could even say that consumerism has become our principal role in the Western world, season after season, holiday after holiday.
While basic consumerism is a reality we can’t escape, how we consume can make a difference. The cycle of fast fashion draws us into the ever-fluctuating trends of high fashion leading us to fad consumerism, discarding said fashion when “out” of style, and then consuming again as quickly as possible to not miss the next trend. We have four seasons to discover new looks, and retailers restock style inventory every 4-6 weeks. Fast fashion churns out over 100 billion garments per year, and with this turn over, millions of tons of never-worn clothes end up in landfills when they could easily be recycled or reused.
Perhaps you are a more conscious consumer who shops at or donates to your local thrift stores. While charity shops and donation banks can be valuable recycling outlets, your rejected clothing will most likely sit in a warehouse for years, will have a one-in-three chance of finding a new owner in the store, or if donated to a large thrift chain, may have a better chance of being sold to textile merchants or shipped overseas for cheap profit or deconstruction.
>> Fashionable Conscientiousness
The concept of finding new life in second-hand and vintage clothing came to fruition during the textile shortages and fabric restrictions of World War II. Over the ensuing decades, financial considerations of the middle and lower classes have perpetuated this more sustainable consumption, and Western culture has become increasingly aware of the global and personal impacts of the fashion industry on our health, our lives, our cultures, our environment and the interconnection of the world at large. Today, a significant amount of us are modifying our shopping habits and priorities towards purchasing more sustainable, eco-friendly, ethically-made, quality, craft and local goods.
Shopping for secondhand and vintage clothing is certainly a practical pursuit, but it can also be a crap shoot. Garments don’t always have tags that could indicate toxic chemicals or materials. Clothes haven’t been cared for and are again discarded. The search for something of high quality and good construction can be frustratingly elusive. Transportation is often still a factor. And pursuing a vintage style can also become the same buy/discard cycle. Even with these things in mind, buying vintage or second-hand still makes sense in terms of sustainability and conscientiousness.
Vintage and used clothing don’t require new resources or energy – except the occasional minimal effort of repairing, re-working, re-dyeing, cleaning or altering – and a purchase doesn’t involve additional materials, manufacturing or chemical processing. Vintage clothing also tends to be better constructed and higher quality. If in good repair or requiring only minimal fixing, these garments can still last a long time, reducing waste and coming back in vogue when the style makes its way around the sun.
The practice of adding vintage pieces to your closet breaks the cycle of fashion trends and allows you to create a style all your own. Discover the story of a unique piece and create new stories and memories with it in your own life. Timeless, classic styles and clothing hold and increase in value, and they typically carry a much lower price tag than new clothing. If you keep your vintage clothes in good condition and wear them thoughtfully, you can also have confidence that you’re building an even more sustainable, viable future for vintage and eco fashion.
As you browse the contents of your closet and consider your fashion consumption habits and priorities, here are a few vintage and used shopping tips to consider:
• Be patient. Like all good things, finding treasures that fit you, your style, your age and your body takes time. Have a plan and stay focused.
• Start with pieces that compliment your current wardrobe rather than singular, stand-alone pieces. Choose items that fit your lifestyle, fashion style, current closet, and plan for building the long-lasting style you want.
• Always double check for stains, holes, frays, pilling and signs of poor construction or previous repairs.
•Invest in garments that can stand the test of time, even if you have to make a stitch here or add a button there.
• Have a sustainable, green, maybe even relational outlet for giving away or selling unwanted clothes.
• Be aware and intentional. Don’t just consume on fast fashion’s runway train. It’ll come back again in 20 years! N
Story by S. Michal Bennett
Photos by Joel Riner