Forever Vintage:
How Changes in the Fashion Industry Helped Vintage Style Become a 40-Year Trend
by Nancy L. Fischer, Ph.D.
Department of Sociology, Augsburg College, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Paper submitted for the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting
August 17-20, 2012, Denver Colorado
Abstract: In this paper, I historicize the vintage style trend by discussing how "vintage" became
widely fashionable and why it has remained so for the last forty years. I build upon McRobbie's
(1988) subcultural influence explanation by discussing changes that took place in the clothing
industry that encouraged a shift, from regarding vintage dressing as merely a subcultural style, to
a mainstream fashion style. My aim is to provide a more complete history of how the vintage
trend emerged, why it moved from subculture to mainstream at the time it did, and why vintage
remains a viable alternative means for individuals to be "in fashion" and why it will likely
continue to be desirable.
Introduction
Open a contemporary fashion magazine. Just a few pages after the numerous ads for
designers' new styles, one is likely to come across a photo spread that includes at least a couple
of shots of celebrities whose gowns are captioned as "vintage." In the cover photo shoot for the
December 2011 issue of Elle magazine, actress Jessica Biel is modeling more garments
described as vintage than from a current designer. Lucky magazine has a monthly "City Guide"
for local fashion boutiques that features a listing of some of a city's better-curated vintage stores.
Many cities throughout the United States have vintage-dress events such as Mad Men parties,
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Roaring 20s parties or "80s Nights" clubs. Moreover, the ubiquity of "street style" fashion blogs
like "The Sartorialist" have made wearing vintage de rigeur for demonstrating one's sartorial
savvy whether one is in London, Manhattan or Tokyo (Woodward 2009). Wearing vintage
clothing - clothing that is at least 20 years old - is most certainly "in." In this paper, I historicize
the vintage style trend by discussing how it got "in" and why it has remained fashionable for the
last thirty-five years.
The persistence of the vintage trend seemingly goes against expectations of how the
profit-driven media should respond to selling used clothing. Given that there is a global fashion
industry with its own specialized press that serves to publicize new looks by designers, it is
perhaps odd that fashion magazines devote any pictorial and editorial space that promotes
secondhand clothing. The fashion industry does not directly profit from promoting vintage,
except in the very limited cases of fashion designers who collect and resell their own past work
in boutiques or the odd vintage item that sells on the new clothing website Modcloth. Thus
vintage represents a successful alternative economic market. While vintage clothing - if found at
a thrift store - does not require much money, it does require cultural capital (Bourdieu 1987) to
recognize pieces and wear them in such a way that reads as fashionable in the present day
(Gregson and Crewe 2003).
Researchers' accounts of how the trend of wearing decades-old used clothing emerged all
point to the Post-War subcultural groups who wore antique clothing as a form of rebellion
against conformity in the mass production age. This paper will build upon the subcultural
influence explanation by discussing changes that took place in the clothing industry that made
dress both a site of political expression for subcultural groups and a means of individual
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expression for those trying to achieve fashion's paradox of fitting in while standing out. My goal
is to provide a more complete history of when and why the vintage trend moved from subculture
to mainstream and why it has remained in the fashion mainstream.
A Brief History of Secondhand Clothing
Historically speaking, there is nothing new about people purchasing and wearing
secondhand clothing. Sociologist Diana Crane, (2000:24) in Fashion and its Social Agendas,
assumed that used clothing is the apparel of last resort for the poor and the working class, who
are presumably unable to afford new, ready-to-wear garments. However, the work of historians
Madeleine Ginsburg (1980) and Beverly Lemire (1988) show that this assumption best describes
the social meaning of purchasing secondhand clothing during a rather narrow swath of Western
history, from roughly the 1880s to the 1970s.
Prior to the 1880s, it was respectable for all but the upper class members of society to buy
and wear used clothing. In fact, used clothing -- which could be purchased from tailors, dress
shops, rag traders and pawn brokers -- was desirable because it offered middle-class people
access to items of higher quality in terms of tailoring and fabric, as well as an appearance coded
as upper-class, though a bit dated (Ginsburg 1980; Lemire 1988). Whether we could call these
garments "vintage" in today's parlance is doubtful since the clothing was likely only a few years
out of mode rather than the anachronistic, iconic styles that define a segment of today's used
clothing market as "vintage" (Delong, Heineman and Reiley 2005).
Before the 1880s, ready-to-wear clothing was not widely available; fashionable styles
changed more slowly, and one could wear used clothing with a modicum of respectability. When
ready-to-wear clothing became more available and affordable to the working classes of major
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cities, styles began to change more rapidly, and it presumably became easier to identify used
clothing as such. During this time period, the domestic secondhand clothing market in places like
London dwindled and rag traders shifted into the export business; used clothing was shipped to
places like Ireland where ready-to-wear was less available (Lemire 1988).
Thus, it was not until the 1880s that used clothing began to develop a shabby reputation.
When factory-made clothing became widely available and the fashionable styles of wealthy
became "democratized" in terms of availability to the masses through improved production
techniques (Steele 1989), used clothing became coded as the clothing of last resort for the
destitute; an out-of-date appearance was a sure giveaway.
Secondhand Clothing as Subcultural Anti-Fashion
Given secondhand clothing's fall from fashion grace when the consumer market for
ready-to-wear clothing grew exponentially, how did a trend for wearing used, "vintage" clothing
re-emerge as fashionable in the late 20th century, when ready-to-wear was even more available
and affordable than previously in history?
Wearing used clothing by choice as a purposeful symbolic marker of identity most likely
began with American youth subcultures using thrifted garments from previous decades as an
"anti-fashion" statement. According to sociologist Fred Davis (1994) and historian Elizabeth
Wilson (1985), anti-fashion describes styles of dress that are explicitly contrary to fashionable
styles of the day that are often worn to symbolize rebellion and to signal belonging to a group.
British cultural theorist Angela McRobbie (1988) is the most widely cited author on the
emergence of vintage style. In the United States, the 1950s beatniks were the first subcultural
youth group whose "look" was known to include thrift store clothing (McRobbie 1988; Hoff
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1997). While beatnik "arty" style did include fur coats, satin dresses and silk blouses from the
1930s and 1940s, for the most part, it was the non-vintage aspects that were adopted in
mainstream fashion circles: the tendency to dress in black, in capri pants with ballet flats, topped
with boatneck shirts (Hoff 1997; Melinkoff 1984). However, it is worth noting that one
“vintage” look very briefly entered the fashion mainstream in the 1950s. Melinkoff (1984) notes
that, "Raccoon coats were an aberrant one-season fad in the fall of 1957. Suddenly, mysteriously
resurrected from attic trunks, 1920s vintage raccoon coats were put on sale in department stores
for $25." This suggests in at least one fashion season prior to 1970, a "vintage" look went
mainstream rather than remain a sartorial practice of only a subcultural group.
The beatniks were followed by hippies in the 1960s as the next group who used
"anachronistic dressing" (McRobbie 1988) as a marker of subcultural identity. Connected to the
rock music scene, hippies made eye-catching fashion statements by wearing Edwardian and
Victorian coats, military surplus jackets, long flowy dresses and recycled Levi denim jeans
which they colorfully embellished with embroidery, sequins and beads. Hippies clearly made
dress a matter of politics.
It was an honor and a responsibility to reuse old clothing and take a stand against any
kind of bourgeois fashion imperative. Excess military clothing from the thrifts and
army-navy surplus stores was especially useful for making statements against the
ongoing war. A flak jacket removed from its military context and worn over a patchwork
skirt...[is] a public confrontation" (Hoff 1997:82).
By the mid-1970s, punk subculture took over wearing secondhand as anti-fashion from
the hippies, opening their own stalls selling used clothing in London's flea markets (McRobbie
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1988). Punks used secondhand clothing in more shocking ways - men's long johns dyed black
worn under feminine tulle skirts, the underwear adorned with purposeful rips and tears held
together by safety pins while still exposing ample flesh. The punks perhaps had to more
drastically alter secondhand looks in order to make an anti-fashion statement. By the early 1970s,
wearing vintage clothing was entering the fashion mainstream and it was becoming harder to
shock by the mere fact of wearing garments that had long gone out of style.
Vintage Dressing Goes Mainstream
The 1970s were a watershed decade in the development of "retro" as a pop-cultural trend.
According to Elizabeth Guffey (2006), by the early 1970s, “retro” revivalism was visible in films
(Bonnie and Clyde; American Graffiti), theatre (the Broadway hit Grease), television (the sitcom
Happy Days), and music (revival bands like Sha Na Na or the return of older 50s bands like Bill
Haley and the Comets). Fashion followed suit, largely inspired by the costumes in revivalist
films and television shows. Wearing older looks culled from secondhand stores moved into the
mainstream. "Vintage boutiques" (rather than mere secondhand or thrift stores) were profiled in
newspapers around the country. A character in a popular movie was costumed in almost entirely
in vintage looks (Annie Hall). The first guidebook to dressing with style in secondhand clothing
was published (Cheap Chic by Catherine Milinaire in 1975). And the word "vintage" entered the
lexicon as an adjective that described clothing rather than only fine wine or classic cars.
In my research (using the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, which became the
EBSCO on-line database for articles published after 1990), it was also in the 1970s that articles
began to appear in the American press that suggested that wearing older clothing was becoming
trendy. The first such news item was in a July 1973 Time magazine article, "Rags to riches
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(really)," which describes how secondhand Levi's denim jeans, adorned with embroidery, were
being sold at "designer prices" by Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue. The article states, "The
highest prices are tagged to genuine used denim tempered by years of wear and spruced up with
colorful embroidery. Many of the old jeans are acquired by scrap-clothes dealers and sold to
boutiques" (Time 1973:52). Two years later, Time again reported a growing interest in used
clothing that re-framed secondhand as fashionable in the article "Secondhand Chic," which
described increased sales of used clothing and furniture across the country. The article mentions
the recession as a possible cause, yet also quotes a Manhattan doctor's wife with a maid who
enjoyed thrift shopping.
Finally in 1978, U.S. fashion magazines began to describe the new trend of wearing
"antique clothing." In the February 1978 issue of Seventeen, the magazine featured a photo
spread titled "California Girl: Her Fashion Style: Dressing in Antique Clothes" (Aldridge 1978).
The article consisted of photographs of a modeling contest winner, dressed in various antique
petticoats-worn-as-dresses, and vintage menswear a la Annie Hall (which had been released in
1977, featuring Diane Keaton in vintage menswear). The piece included tips for buying, caring
for and altering antique garments.
It is difficult to know who first coined the term "vintage" in relation to clothing, thus
making a semantic link between garments and fine aged wine. The word does not appear in
relation to clothing until 1979. Vogue was the first fashion magazine in the U.S. to put the words
"vintage clothes" together in print in the article "Boom in Vintage Clothes." In Vogue's article,
Anne Hollander somewhat testily speculates on why "la mode retro" became popular, citing that
perhaps it was the influence of:
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...The Great Sixties Costume Party. Included then among possible getups...were
clothes that looked as if they had long been imprisoned in the attic, or maybe in the
grave....Today what remains from the frantic 'sixties is a youthful vogue for tired old lace
and muslin underwear, which are now worn on the outside for romantically sordid
effects--suggesting Bellocq and Brooke Shields. (Hollander 1979:273).
Essence magazine followed suit in employing the word "vintage" in November of 1979 in the
article "Retro Dressing" (Wright 1979). The text of the Essence article shows there was not yet a
consensus on how to describe the new style of dressing old, with the author referring to the
practice alternately as "retro dressing," "antique dressing" "vintage dressing" and "past perfect
dressing."
As the tone of the 1979 Vogue' article suggests, the fashion world did not necessarily
embrace the new "vintage" trend. Kennedy Fraser, a well-known fashion writer for Vogue and
The New Yorker, saw the trend as disingenuous in her 1980 essay "Retro: A Reprise:"
Clothes came to be worn and seen as an assemblage as thought-out paradoxes, as irony,
whimsy or deliberate disguise. Thrift shop dressing carried it all to its ultimate. We took
to clothes for which we had spent little money, which didn't necessarily fit us, and which
had belonged in the past in some dead stranger's life. Behind the bravado of what came to
be known as "style," there may have lurked a fear of being part of our time, of being
locked into our own personalities, and of revealing too much about our own lives. (Fraser
1981:238).
Despite these misgivings, articles that promoted wearing vintage continued to appear in
fashion and other types of magazines (including Forbes, People, Changing Times) throughout
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the 1980s. For example, Mademoiselle published three articles during the 1980s on where and
how to shop for "antique" clothes, how to care for such garments and two more articles about the
"zing" and panache of vintage style. Vogue warmed a bit to vintage with a 1982 article titled
"Vintage Passion" and another in 1989, "Everything Old is New Again."
Street style photography, where stylish dressers on sidewalks were stopped and asked
about what they were wearing, first gained popularity in the 1980s, in a UK magazine called iD
(McRobbie 1988). Vintage looks were part of the street-style look then, and vintage looks remain
almost de rigeur for street-style photography today (Woodward 2009), from Bill Cunningham's
New York Times photos, to the popular Sartorialist blog.
To summarize my findings from the analysis of media articles about wearing secondhand/
vintage clothing, articles suggesting that wearing secondhand clothing was a trend first appeared
in 1973 - nearly 40 years ago - and articles and photos describing wearing vintage clothing.
Media attention to the trend was sporadic (on a yearly basis) until 1978 when Seventeen featured
their spread on antique dressing. From that point onward, there were stories in the mainstream
press about vintage dressing every year and that attention has continued to the present day.
What writers Anne Hollander and Kennedy Fraser regarded as fad in fact never faded.
The question, then, is why? What drove consumers to start seeking decades-old looks from
secondhand stores and the new vintage boutiques in the 1970s and 1980s? Why have vintage
looks had such staying power for the last 35 years? What follows is an initial structural analysis
of changes in the U.S. apparel industry that paralleled the vintage dressing as a trend that may
explain why a segment of the mainstream clothing market may have been drawn to vintage
dressing as a sartorial alternative.
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Changes in the Fashion Industry, 1950-2010
In this section of the paper I historically contextualize the emergence of the vintage style
trend by moving beyond McRobbie’s subcultural influence explanation discussed above. I
discuss fashion industry changes that both preceded and paralleled the vintage trend. Primarily, I
draw upon the work of Teri Agins (2000), Thomas Frank (1997) and Sharon Zukin (2005) who
have written histories of fashion industry changes. I address how these changes contextualize
why vintage attire and buying secondhand clothing generally became desirable to both
subcultural groups and members of mainstream America. My explanation describes the
following Post-War industry changes: fashion industry receptiveness to American critiques of
1950s conformity; the fall of Paris couture as the center of Western style-setting; growth of
clothing imports to the U.S. and along with it, increased mass production of apparel production;
and clothing design companies becoming publicly traded on the stock exchange.
The defining feature of fashion is change (Davis 1984; Wilson 1985). According to
Stanley Lieberson (2000), there are many areas of social life that are subject to the social rules of
fashion - names, styles of furniture, clothing. A necessary condition for something to be shaped
by fashion is that the area of life must become open to some degree of individual choice rather
than completely guided by formal rules, custom, tradition or strict norms. Thus in Lieberson's
study of different names that were fashionable in different time periods, when Christian naming
was a strong tradition, there was little variation in European names over centuries. However as
naming norms loosened, more variety occurred and certain names have since come in and gone
out of fashion in a seemingly endless cycle. The fashionability of styles of dress is subject to
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similar dynamics. Fashion changes both because of internal factors (for example, a simple desire
for novelty) and external factors (such as advertising campaigns) (Lieberson 2000).
One powerful external factor that shaped what was considered stylish in the 1950s was the
reputation of Paris as the center of couture and therefore, of fashion.
We waited each year for the announcement from Paris regarding next year's hemline.
Newspapers and magazines played along, giving front-page coverage to the longanticipated, dreaded measurement....The newsworthiness of this event heightened our
impression that we were powerless to rebel. Paris would tell us what was
fashionable" (Melinkoff 1984:27).
Paris design houses were able to dictate color schemes, skirt lengths and silhouettes, and
American clothing companies drafted their own versions of Paris styles (Zukin 2004). With Paris
as guide, the 1950s, as in previous decades, were characterized by clear rules about what was and
was not in fashion.
However, according to Thomas Frank (1997), during the 1950s, critiques of conformity
were becoming immensely popular. Books like The Organization Man, The Crack in the Picture
Window, The Pyramid Climbers and The Hidden Persuaders were well-regarded 1950s
bestsellers. Critiques of conformity by William Whyte and Daniel Bell appeared in Forbes and
Reader's Digest. Anti-conformity, according to Frank, was surprisingly popular in the U.S.
fashion trade press. Fashion industry insiders were anxious for social change of some sort,
particularly if it shook American men out of gray-flannel-suit complacency. Thus when presented
with cultural changes known as the "youthquake" of the 1960s, the American fashion industry
embraced the spirit of rebellion and any sign of individual expression through clothing. They
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produced ads that allied 60s revolutionary ideas with fashion; there was an explosion in the
variety of styles of clothing and what was considered "in style" for both men and women.
Correspondingly, Paris began to lose significance in dictating fashion. American
consumers increasingly rejected French designs as old, too stuffy and formal; London, Milan and
New York designers instead began to capture the public imagination. Also, boutique stores
became the hip new places for youth to purchase apparel, so much so that they threatened
department stores' grip on the fashion market (Zukin 2004).
In my Reader's Guide exploration of the news in clothing and fashion, in the 1960s and
1970s there were repeated headlines about the wage structure in the apparel industry and labor
discord in the American clothing industry. Also, there were articles reporting an increasing
amount of imported clothing coming from Hong Kong where labor was cheaper. By the 1970s,
during the recession, the United States bled jobs in the garment industry as companies that
produced clothing increasingly moved production overseas to avoid paying union labor costs. It
was in 1975 that International Ladies Garment Workers Union launched their well-known ad
campaign "Look for the Union Label" as a final plea to U.S. consumers to buy garments made in
the U.S.A. But American consumers were too enamored with bargains to pay more for unionmade (Zukin 2004). Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. clothing and textile industry
continued to globalize and move production overseas.
According to Frank (1997), U.S. clothing producers in the 1960s and 1970s could be
satisfied with the profits they made by coming up with one of the season's "hot little numbers."
There were many small-label firms that produced clothes throughout the United States. But the
fashion business was known to be financially capricious, only for the sort of investors who
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appreciated the creativity of the trade. However, the shift to overseas production in the 1970s
made the fashion business more financially attractive to larger players less interested in risk.
In the 1980s, fashion became big business, as investors in a bullish market looked for new
investment avenues. Clothing companies - Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Donna
Karen - took their stock public, which immediately changed the industry from fashion design and
clothing production as a creative endeavor with fashion designers at the center, to a licensing,
cost-cutting and marketing endeavor with the corporate financial officer at the center (Agins
2000).
The practice of licensing a designer's name for other products such as perfumes,
handbags, luggage, scarves was not limited to the new publicly-traded companies. French
designer Pierre Cardin made huge profits through licensing in the 1970s. But when clothing
corporations went public, this practice expanded. Department stores and discount retailers were
flooded with (often low-quality) items that bore a designer label, which cheapened the brand
image for some companies (Agins 2000). Careful comparison shoppers began to question
whether "designer" was worth the price and also reveled in searching for bargains and discounts
(Zukin 2004).
Cost-cutting through overseas clothing manufacture, often in sweatshops, was another
practice that led to a glut of clothing in the U.S. market in the 1980s and in the 1990s. The
economies of scale of mass production meant thousands of shirts, jackets and dresses in nearidentical styles, in different colors were readily available. This also meant that the clothing
looked the same, whether at the discount store or the mall.
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The financial pressure to turn a quarterly profit for shareholders changed the way
designers became successful. Designers allegedly felt pressure to play it safe, often by recasting
successful looks from fashion's past. Other "designers" stopped designing altogether and focused
on creating a strong brand image through new lifestyle marketing campaigns in the 1980s. Ralph
Lauren, who heads the most financially successful designer clothing brand, has anonymous staff
who "design" clothes from which Lauren chooses and tweaks details for his various lines.
Lauren's looks are known for their retro appeal; the models, the photo shoots, the flagship Ralph
Lauren store in New York all purposefully recall an earlier patrician country club style in order to
suggest luxury and quality (Agins 2000).
The new lifestyle marketing campaigns considerably altered the lay-out of department
stores; they were re-organized by brand, with Hilfiger, Nautica, Polo and Eileen Fisher all
carrying their own versions of the season's styles in shirts, skirts and jackets in their designated
mini-stores on the sales floor (Agins 2000). Previously, stores were organized by departments,
like “Dresses,” “Sportswear” and “Outerwear” where all brands were, more or less, on an equal
playing field. Customers complained about the reorganization because it made comparison
shopping more difficult, but to no avail (Zukin 2004).
The coalescence of these fashion industry changes had a number of impacts. One was that
stores - whether discount retailers or department stores - were flooded with clothes that largely
looked the same, save for subtle differences in color and style details. "Designers" were drawing
off of the same safe ideas that had been hits in the past or were known as "classics." Shopping in
the department store or the mall became boring and monotonous for many (Agins, 2000).
Moreover, much of the clothing from overseas factories had a reputation for being of rather poor
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quality, which cut into consumer confidence. Consumers could discern no real difference
between clothing sold by discount retailers and garments with the designer label and price tag
(Zukin 2004). There was more clothing than ever, but fewer willing to purchase it at full price.
The industry response in the 1990s and 2000s was to deploy "flexible production"
techniques that allowed them to produce "fast fashion." Fast fashion, associated with retailers
like Target, H & M and Zara, has approximately an 18-week cycle: design -- overseas production
-- release in stores -- clearance rack. Fast fashion allows retailers to respond quickly to emerging
trends and get new looks on the store floor while interest remains. Fast fashion is also meant to
be an antidote to the homogeneity of looks by cycling different styles through a store quickly,
hopefully giving the consumer a feeling of spontaneity, that something is always new.
It is against this backdrop of Post-War fashion industry changes that the vintage clothing
trend emerged and has endured for forty years as an alternative way to be stylish.
Discussion: How Industry Changes Paved the Way for "Forever Vintage"
Researchers with an interest in vintage (and secondhand clothing generally), have
explored reasons why individuals purchase and wear vintage clothing. According to Delong,
Heineman and Reiley (2005) a desire to look "unique" through wearing a garment that is
perceived to be one-of-a-kind is the primary reason consumers shop vintage. Reiley (2008) also
found that those who shop vintage do so because they believe the quality of the older garments is
better than that of clothing produced today. Nicky Gregson and Louise Crewe (2003), in an
extensive ethnography on British secondhand selling spaces (including rummage sales, charity
shops and retro boutiques), identify the spontaneity, "the thrill of the hunt," and the implicit
pleasure for middle-class people to find cool items and "capture a bargain." Such shopping often
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makes for a good story to tell friends, such as "I found this vintage Chanel jacket for only $5 in a
thrift shop!" And while Gregson and Crewe found that ethical and ecological considerations
were low on the list of reasons shoppers gave for buying secondhand, Skinner Charbonneau's
(2008) study did find that social responsibility was a factor in a U.S. sample of consumers who
buy secondhand clothing.
These studies on individuals' reasons for buying vintage and secondhand are useful for
understanding what is appealing about purchasing clothing on an alternative market. However,
they do not situate the trend of vintage style historically or culturally. Fashion historian
Elizabeth Wilson (1985:8-9) argues that studies of individuals' feelings about their clothes and
style tends to reduce the historicized and social concept of "fashion" into the ahistorical category
"clothing." In Wilson's words (1985:9), "Fashion's changing styles owe far less to psychological
quirks than to the evolution of aesthetic styles generally." In this discussion, I will take on
Wilson's challenge and attempt to contextualize the emergence and persistence of the vintage
clothing trend within the industry changes described above.
The first subcultural groups that engaged in "anachronistic dressing" by dressing in
thrifted clothing were the beatniks in the 1950s and the hippies in the 1960s. Both groups
expressed anti-conformity ideas that had become popular. It is not surprising that the centrality of
Paris, with its dictatorial, stuffy reputation in fashion design, was challenged at this time,
specifically in 1957 with the American public's refusal to buy the new shapeless "chemise" dress
(and coincidentally, the first vintage fashion trend of wearing 20s raccoon coats). These changes
loosened fashion rules, and according to Lieberson (2000), whenever a sector of life becomes
more open to more choice, more variation in fashion takes place. I believe this relates to the
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emergence of the vintage dressing trend. Fashion became a sector of social life that was viewed
as an area deserving of anti-conformist critique and change through individual expression.
Shopping on the secondhand market was a logical alternative market for youth to procure
expressive styles. And while anachronistic dressing did not really catch on with the larger
American public in the 1950s and 1960s, the possibility was emerging via the popularity of these
ideas, the proliferation of new non-Parisian styles, new places to shop (boutiques), and media
coverage of subcultural groups who demonstrated an alternative way of dressing.
Yet, if the only "pushes" toward vintage style had been the circulation of anti-conformist
ideas that were celebrated by subcultural youth groups who dressed in alternative styles, I'm not
sure that vintage dressing would have become a mainstream trend covered by the fashion press
or that it would have persisted for so long.
For the trend to go mainstream and stay mainstream, I believe that the fashion industry
changes of the 1970s - 1990s were key to making the purchase of secondhand clothing a
desirable alternative to the suburban mall or the downtown department store. The studies on
individuals' reasons for purchasing secondhand and vintage are instructive in this context.
Consumers who shop vintage and secondhand are looking for clothing that is unique and is of
higher quality than what they believe they can afford on the new clothing market (Reiley 2008).
They also want the shopping experience to be characterized by spontaneity, and a bit of
challenge so that they can "capture a bargain" (Gregson and Crewe 2003). And, some shoppers
want to feel like their consuming practices reflect a sense of social responsibility (Skinner
Charbonneau 2008).
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Most of these qualities (except finding bargains) have been stripped from the shopping
experience of department stores, brand stores and discount retailers since the 1980s.
Vintage consumers are probably correct that clothing today is less unique.
Designers admittedly rely on past style hits for their inspiration (as a January 2012 Vogue
interview of Marc Jacobs reveals), which not only means new clothing looks familiar, but that it
is easy to look current wearing a 50-year old garment. The economies of scale of clothing
production mean that very large orders must be placed, keeping smaller designers from entering
the market with unique lines, and it means that what is in chain stores largely looks the same.
Passing by store after store of the same styles in different colors does not provide the spontaneity
or thrill of a find that vintage shoppers are looking for. In fact, some chain stores (Urban
Outfitters, American Apparel, Free People) typically locate themselves in urban areas where
vintage boutiques cluster and even design their store layout similarly in order to try to capture
their halo effect. And while shifting clothing production overseas delivered the bargains that the
American public wanted, subsequent reports of sweatshop labor conditions made some feel
morally unsettled about their purchases.
The conditions of mass production in overseas sweatshops and the reliance upon old
looks in new fashion to hopefully secure a profit continue unabated. It is no wonder that
"vintage" has become the imprimatur for the fashionistas who hope to be photographed for
popular "street style" blogs (Woodward 2009). In Thomas Frank's (1997:227) words,
Retro's vision of the past as a floating style catalog from which we can choose quaint
wardrobes but from which we are otherwise disconnected is, in many respects, hip
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consumerism's proudest achievement: it simultaneously reinforces contemporary
capitalism's curious ahistorical vision and its feverish cycling of obsolescence.
The cumulative effects of these industry changes make it likely that vintage style will
only recede when the garments themselves become scarce due to deterioration from repeated use.
In fact, when I interviewed vintage shop owners, this has become a very real fear as they face
difficulties in sourcing clothing and they worry that clothing produced after 1980 is not of
sufficient quality to hold up. However, at this writing, clothes from the 1990s have started
appearing in stores as "the new vintage."
References
Agins, Teri. 2000. The End of Fashion: How Marketing Changed the Clothing Business Forever.
New York: HarperCollins.
Aldridge, Laura. 1978. "California Girl: Her Fashion Style: Dressing in Antique Clothes."
Seventeen February 37:120-125.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1987 [1984]. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Boston,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Crane, Diana. 2001. Fashion and its Social Agendas: Class, Gender and Identity in
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