The Paradox of ‘Creating’ Clothes from the Past: How fast fashion is trying to seep into 2021’s nostalgic trends.

With the revival of the 80s sweatshirt, flares, and now the early 2000’s ‘y2k’ style of low-rise jeans and tank tops, it is time to admit that fashion is more cyclical than we may have previously thought. People’s mum’s and dad’s clothes are back in fashion, and if we can’t get our hands on them, we’re in charity shops or on e-bay for authentic and individual finds. The rise in the purchasing of vintage or second-hand clothing is encouraged by not only trends but the movement towards slower fashion. The movement towards second-hand clothing has been aided and encouraged by the rise of sites such as Depop, Vinted, and small vintage wholesalers, where whacking ‘vintage’ or ‘y2k’ in the description almost triples the price, and where old is trendy. To prove this trend in consumer spending, research by The Charity Retail Association has noted that UK charity shops alone, are up in profits to £295m in the last financial year, from £278m the previous year. Depop too, a figurehead of the reselling and second-hand industry, has doubled its active users in just America in only four months from March to July 2020, from 1,123,448 to 2,569,602.

It is no surprise, therefore, that fast-fashioned brands want to get in on the second-hand and vintage industry action. The current items trending on larger sites such as Shein and Amazon reflect this because even if people are buying ‘new’ they want to participate in the trend of ‘old. Trending searches such as ‘y2k’, ‘retro’, and ‘vintage’ on fast fashion sites beg the question of whether keeping up with these nostalgic trends has overtaken the original brilliance of the cheaper, more sustainable, and exclusive clothing and fashion. The attractiveness of digging up popular trends from past eras; the exclusivity of rare finds, the nostalgia, and the global benefits of slower fashion, have made them popular. Brands that create new garments have no doubt noticed these trends and incorporate nods to it in their new garments – does this defeat the point? The search ‘y2k tops’ on Amazon returns 440 results, for example, which were all probably made within this year. What originally started as a trend to have a more exclusive look with older clothing, or to replicate the fashion trends of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, has turned into sweatshops and factories actually mass-creating these garments. Surely manufacturing a fashion trend from the 2000s takes away from its original exclusive nostalgic nature.

A friend of mine recently bought a jumper from the fast fashion brand Misguided. Upon arrival the jumper was broken at the cuffs and neck and looked worn in other places. After sending it back and receiving another, she realized that in the description of this jumper was ‘vintage look’ and the scuffs on the item were deliberately engineered for the authentic feel of the garment. How strange is this? This fast fashion and certainly not vintage, the brand wants to be involved in this market so badly that they will add damaging their items to the production process to give it the ‘second hand’ look. Need I add that his 80’s style jumper was about half the price of the genuine vintage jumper of a similar look, so if your main concern were the trend, why wouldn’t you buy it? I find this so interesting to examine as exemplifying the current fashion industry.

Of course, we can analyze and ponder the economic and global impact of this, and I would like to stress that my speculation on this is not involving the ethics of any party, it is more to think about the paradox we are involved in. It is arguable that cheap fast fashion brands supplying clothes with a vintage look are outpricing genuine vintage clothing that will be more expensive from individual retailers. The high demand for vintage clothing and the turn towards second-hand shopping is slightly alleviating the current global issue of the tonnes of clothing that go into landfill. However, the authenticity and exclusive nature of vintage and older clothes make them expensive. The creation of these fake 80’s jumpers or y2k crop tops is not only adding to landfill, as cheap clothes are rarely kept and cherished as long as more expensive items, it is also providing cheaper alternatives to the genuine thing and possibly pushing the genuine second-hand retailers out the market. But then again, who am I to say that someone should shun the cheaper alternative of the fashion trend they are enjoying and instead seek out the most expensive item in the name of sustainability?

Another fast fashion issue that is seeping into second-hand selling sites is sellers bulk buying new stock from cheap factories and selling them on sites such as Depop as second-hand vintage. We can assume that the consumers on the site share the same sustainable ethos as the app creators, so how are they to know that by supporting these sellers they are not actually shopping in the genuine trend, or even shopping second-hand? This is another example of fast fashion retailers and sellers exploiting the shift towards more sustainable, old, or second-hand clothes shopping of consumers.

It is interesting to see how Gen Z is revisiting the eras of the past with disposable cameras, vinyl, and clothing. But it is also interesting to see the paradox of how old becoming new has turned into new being made to look old.