An investigation into the curious economy of secondhand fashion, where the older and more battered a garment, the more it somehow costs
I cover the culture of Shoreditch for Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat, and I recently paid a startling sum for a denim jacket that was older than I am, more battered than my self-esteem, and described by the shop as a curated vintage piece, which is, I have learned, the trade term for second-hand clothing that has been to university.
The vintage paradox is one of the great economic mysteries of the neighbourhood. In the ordinary world, things lose value as they age and wear out. In Shoreditch, the opposite applies. The older the garment, the more battered, the more faded, the more it bears the marks of a previous life, the more, somehow, it costs. A pristine new jacket is worth less than a wrecked old one, and the wreckage is the point, and the wreckage commands a premium.
The Economics Of The Battered
How does this work? Partly it is scarcity, the genuine vintage piece being, by definition, irreplaceable, the specific old garment unrepeatable in a way the new one is not. Partly it is authenticity, the old garment carrying the patina of a real history that the new one lacks. And partly it is pure fashion, the battered aesthetic simply being, at the moment, what the cool desire, the wreckage a signifier of taste, the premium the price of the signal. I have analysed all this in my column, with the bemusement of one who has paid the premium and still does not fully understand it.
The curation is the crucial value-add. The same battered jacket, found in a charity shop, costs a fraction of what it costs in the curated vintage boutique, the difference being the curation, the selection, the editing, the act of someone with taste having chosen this particular piece of wreckage from the vast sea of available wreckage. One is not paying for the jacket; one is paying for the taste that selected it, the curation the actual product, the jacket merely its vehicle.
The Sustainability Question
The serious thread, which makes me feel better about the premium I paid, is sustainability. The fashion industry is an environmental catastrophe, the production of new clothing a major source of waste and emissions, the fast-fashion model of endless cheap disposable garments genuinely destructive. The vintage trade, whatever its absurd economics, is at least a form of reuse, the old garment given a new life rather than a new one manufactured, the wreckage I paid too much for at least not adding to the landfill.
This does not fully justify the premium, of course, and the curated vintage boutique is as much about fashion and status as about the planet, the sustainability a convenient justification for an expensive taste. But it is not nothing, and as I wear my startlingly expensive ancient jacket, I tell myself that I am at least participating in reuse rather than waste, which is a comforting thought, even if it is not, entirely, the reason I bought the jacket.
So I will keep paying new prices for old clothes, keep participating in the vintage paradox, keep wearing the curated wreckage that costs more the more wrecked it is, comforted by the sustainability and bemused by the economics. The jacket is older than I am and cost more than it should and looks, I must admit, extremely good, and in Shoreditch that combination is not a paradox but a perfectly ordinary transaction, the wreckage worth every absurd penny.
The vintage trade has grown from a niche into a significant part of the neighbourhood economy, the curated boutiques multiplying, the trade in old clothing professionalised, the whole apparatus of sourcing, selecting, and pricing the secondhand garment developed into a sophisticated business, the charity-shop find transformed into the curated piece through the addition of taste and markup.
The sourcing is an art in itself, the vintage dealers scouring the world for the desirable old garments, the warehouses of secondhand clothing sorted and graded, the desirable pieces extracted and shipped to the boutiques where they will command their premium, a global trade in old clothing feeding the neighbourhood appetite for the curated and the battered.
The aesthetics of the battered deserve examination, the specific appeal of the worn, the faded, the visibly used, an appeal that runs counter to the ordinary preference for the new and the pristine, a taste for the patina of history, the marks of a previous life, the authenticity that wear confers. This taste is not universal but local, specific to a culture that values the appearance of authenticity, the wreckage a signifier within a particular system of cool.
The curation, the actual value-add, reflects the broader economy of taste in the neighbourhood, the value placed not on the thing but on the selection of the thing, the editing, the judgment, the act of someone with recognised taste having chosen this particular piece, the curator the real product, the curated object merely the vehicle for the curation. This is the economy of the neighbourhood in miniature, the value in the taste rather than the thing.
The sustainability dimension is genuine, whatever its convenience as justification, the fashion industry environmental toll real and severe, the reuse of existing garments a genuine alternative to the manufacture of new ones, the vintage trade, for all its absurd economics, a real participation in the circular economy, the old garment given new life rather than discarded, the premium at least attached to something environmentally defensible.
More in this vein at NewsThump.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
