Once upon a time vintage, a dusty aesthetic alternative to the system, an emblem of anti-capitalist and therefore economic fashion. A poster (slightly stale) of the clothes of those who did not follow the rules, but dressed, rummaging through flea markets, with all due respect to mothers who “have these clothes few germs.” The practice of wearing old clothes, at least until the 1980s, was a radical gesture, a way to go against the grain and affirm your uniqueness. Second-hand clothes, a little dirty or torn, took on a glamorous patina with a grunge nineties, when dressing in a grandmother’s sweater found in the attic became terribly cool. At the now-legendary MTV Unplugged in 1993, Kurt Cobain appears in a cardigan, clearly stuffed with down and obviously used, and dedicates the classics of bourgeois fashion to the subculture. He puts a punk-feminist Frightwig T-shirt underneath and decorates it with a cigarette burn, then astutely highlights in 2013, when this grunge fashion zenith is auctioned off for $334,000. That’s all The second hand is getting more fun (and popular) than ever. To give you an idea, the campaign is from 1993. Who wore khakis by Gap, which again means unbuttoning Jack Kerouac’s khaki trousers, which he proudly wore over and over again, as an invitation to dress a la beatnik, that is, to use, despite the economic boom, all pastel appliances and a good wardrobe. We make this assumption because, in telling a very contemporary story set between Tik Tok and Depop, it is important to understand how used marketwhich has lost its revolutionary value, turning vintage into a very broad category of fashion, often confused with used which, on the other hand, simply indicates used clothing, more or less recent.
I usedor more poetic pre-favorite also the items of clothing that are inside thrift stores, organizations that combine the sale of used goods with charity and for this reason, always in the smell of spores, ready to explode at any moment. If then I used clothes that are bought, resold at higher prices, or at least nearly identical to the prices of new products, outrage is running high.
‘jbwells controversy’ exploded on Tik Tok
In fact, Jacklyn, a nineteen-year-old American student (on Tik Tok @jbwells2) must not have had a very good time, who last January 24 he showed his booty from second-hand on the social network of very young people, then resold it on Depop. In order, Jacklyn takes off (and wears): a patchwork wrap skirt, a long fur-trimmed suede coat, various leather blazers, and a succession of skirts—micro, midi, or long—obviously all “crazy” and very Y2K. Where is the evil, you say? Evil comes when Jack sells everything on Depop at prices that many users say are unfair. In particular, the first two on the list are the subject of dispute: the skirt granny style, and a boho coat sold by @jbwells2 for $35 and $175, respectively. On Amazon, says a user with a video demonstrating the search, a skirt can be found brand new for $45, and $10 difference is enough to buy. a controversy that soon spread like wildfire from Tik Tok to Twitter. Where the tone of the comments is something like: “buying clothes at an affordable price and reselling them for three times the price is not work, but reckless exploitation”, or again, “the culture of resale is the greatest scourge of our generation.” There are those who go even further, to the point that disturbs sociology and talks about “gentrification of second-hand goods.”
It goes without saying that Jacqueline, like a superstar caught red-handed for God knows what crime, is forced to pay a public fine: by reselling second-hand clothes she pays our university fees and, in addition, contributes to the paving of another piece, the path to increasingly circular fashion. Now; the ground is slippery, as it always is when it comes to profits, but a poor salesman is not a super-rich man who digs up an ultra-luxurious two-cent gem from a thrift store and resells it for God knows what price. Also, Sophie Benson speaks well of british voguewhen he invites us to broaden our horizons and fit history into the bigger picture. Whoever accuses Jacklyn of stealing used clothes under the noses of those who really need them does not mean one of the main problems of modern fashion: overproduction.
Used yes, but with care
In accordance with Rescue gate, 17 million tons of textiles are produced every year in the world. All exploited? Absolutely not, and much of the unsold produce fills the second-hand shelves, which are also forced to turn to recycling, often anything but sustainable. Moreover, as we said earlier, the second hand segment is a segment with exponential growth which, second Topic Up– a used clothing retailer that has been tracking the sector for years – destined to grow three times faster than the conventional clothing market, peaking at an estimated 217% by 2026. 70% of consumers, always emphasize the resale report and then state that Buying a used one is easier than everthanks to apps and online platforms that make it easy to buy and sell.
This is to return to our business Tik Tok also has a lot to do with features “Inflated” prices for used clothes. In fact, reselling takes hours of work: the research, cleaning, and images that need to be done to make it ready for publication are all part of a package (of time and money) that is fairly rewarded in some way. Summing up; if we care even a little about protecting our planet, buying used clothes and accessories is a good and right thing to do. Of course, everything should not be an additional trigger for compulsive buying, just as the practice of reselling should not get out of hand. Because reselling already thinking about how much you can earn (with a surcharge) is not ethical at all.
Source: Elle