Modern secondhand clothes are often considered ‘dirty’ but vintage garments aren’t – certain assumptions limit sustainable fashion

As a teenager in post-USSR Ukraine, I vividly remember visiting secondhand clothes shops. For the elderly, the biggest obstacle to accepting secondhand clothes wasn’t just the lingering smell of naphthalene – a potent chemical with a strong mothball odour used for sanitation which is hard to remove even by washing or dry cleaning.

Assumptions about the previous owner’s class — like the bourgeoisie, the so-called enemy of the working class in Soviet propaganda — and their skin colour were barriers too. But for me, these were exactly the reasons I adored this form of shopping. Through…

© La Conversation - vendredi 13 septembre 2024