1. Introduction
The trend for vintage fashion may be considered a response to the negative
publicity and effects of fast fashion. Fast fashion is essentially a
business model for companies that manufacture products to retail in
their own high street stores making use of vertically integrated production
methods rather than the traditional linear model commonly used
by fashion companies. The fast fashion method ensures quick response
to consumer demand as all of the production occurs on one site. This
has enabled retailers to have copies of celebrities’ outfits available in
store within a few weeks of their media coverage, a concept that has
found particular favor amongst young consumers. However, consumers
are symptomatically disposing of fast fashion goods as quickly as
the fashion companies can produce them. As a consequence, as Small
states in Brown (2010: 7), in 2009 UK consumers disposed of more
than two tonnes (metric tons) of fast-fashion clothing that had only
been worn around six times, on average, per garment. Meanwhile, the
vintage trend gained a slow but steady growth, preserving and recycling
fashion products that are representative of past trends from different
eras of the twentieth century rather than the in-the-moment trends
synonymous with fast fashion. While vintage, like fast fashion, can be
traced back to the 1990s, more recently vintage has emerged as a much
stronger fashion trend and the movement is showing the potential to
increase further as consumers adopt new attitudes towards secondhand
products. As Lucy Cavendish quotes fashion retail expert Mary Portas
in The Times article on December 5, 2009, “The recession means we
have all slowed down. We focus more on the value of something” and
as more people view the concept of fast fashion as “vulgar” there seems
to be a rise in the purchase of quality secondhand clothing. Also fast
fashion has equated to large numbers of consumers wearing the same
garments lacking individuality, which Palmer (2005: 197) posed as an
The Rise of Vintage Fashion and the
The trend for vintage fashion may be considered a response to the negative
publicity and effects of fast fashion. Fast fashion is essentially a
business model for companies that manufacture products to retail in
their own high street stores making use of vertically integrated production
methods rather than the traditional linear model commonly used
by fashion companies. The fast fashion method ensures quick response
to consumer demand as all of the production occurs on one site. This
has enabled retailers to have copies of celebrities’ outfits available in
store within a few weeks of their media coverage, a concept that has
found particular favor amongst young consumers. However, consumers
are symptomatically disposing of fast fashion goods as quickly as
the fashion companies can produce them. As a consequence, as Small
states in Brown (2010: 7), in 2009 UK consumers disposed of more
than two tonnes (metric tons) of fast-fashion clothing that had only
been worn around six times, on average, per garment. Meanwhile, the
vintage trend gained a slow but steady growth, preserving and recycling
fashion products that are representative of past trends from different
eras of the twentieth century rather than the in-the-moment trends
synonymous with fast fashion. While vintage, like fast fashion, can be
traced back to the 1990s, more recently vintage has emerged as a much
stronger fashion trend and the movement is showing the potential to
increase further as consumers adopt new attitudes towards secondhand
products. As Lucy Cavendish quotes fashion retail expert Mary Portas
in The Times article on December 5, 2009, “The recession means we
have all slowed down. We focus more on the value of something” and
as more people view the concept of fast fashion as “vulgar” there seems
to be a rise in the purchase of quality secondhand clothing. Also fast
fashion has equated to large numbers of consumers wearing the same
garments lacking individuality, which Palmer (2005: 197) posed as an
The Rise of Vintage Fashion and the