In journalists’ 1980s quotations of what vintage cons
umers want, their answers
included natural fibers, quality, craftsmanship, uniqueness and the historicity em-
bedded in vintage garments. These qualities are typically invoked in authenticity
discourse. Macdonald (2013: 119) characterizes “authenticity” as a
“stretchy”
term that encompasses many meanings. Objects and experiences deemed authen-
tic are often associated with nature, tradition, heritage, the past, craft, originality,
and/or reflecting one’s core identity (Jenss 2004; Peterson 2005; Gilmore & Pine
2007; MacDonald 2013). Consumer desire for authenticity is a central feature of
what Gilmore and Pine (2007) describe as the “experience economy,” where con-
sumers are no longer satisfied with goods and services in and of themselves, but
are interested in cultivating compelling experiences and particular symbolic asso-
ciations through their consumption practices.
Walter Benjamin (1969) describes how during the industrial age, authenticity –
in the form of originality
– becomes a quality to be prized (Peterso
n 2005). The
ease of endlessly reproducing art through photography leads to loss of aura. Au-
thenticity is thus symbolically constructed in opposition to mass consumption and
the market (Peterson 2005; Macdonald 2013). Consumers who seek authentic
goods and
experiences picture themselves engaging a market separate from stand-
ardization and its associated social and labor relations (Macdonald 2013). In fact,
this symbolic opposition is so strong that authenticity claims are often used to
obscure the industrial
processes involved in manufacturing material goods such as
when wine
-makers emphasize family tradition or grapes from old vines (Peterson
2005: 1084).
Moreover, it is often the qualities of production methods “that make them es-
pecially amendable to becomi
ng part of authenticity discourse. What is at work
here is a contrasting of different kinds of
things
carrying different kinds of histo-
ries and social relations –
and an attendant relativity of authenticity” (MacDonald
2013: 124). By attributing authentic qualities to vintage clothing, consumers im-
plicitly draw boundaries between old clothing and mass
-manufactured apparel.
These boundaries may be based on a false distinction. It is highly likely that when
1970s and 80s consumers celebrated the qualities of vintage clothing that had first
been sold between 1940 and 1960, they were actually appreciating design and
garment construction from earlier forms of mass production. As Elizabeth Cline
(2013) notes, almost all clothing, whether home
-sewn or factory
-made,
is pro-
duced by the hands of individuals (usually women) sitting at sewing machines.
However, older techniques were more labor intense and geared towards pleasing
customers, such as constructing garments that were lined or fitted with darts.
Adrian Frankl
in (2002) makes the case that when an object is re
-cycled as retro
(or in this case, “vintage”), it takes on different meanings than what probably led
to its initial purchase. Those who first acquire a garment purchase it because its
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, Volume 7
, 2015
[62]
qualities mark it as n
ovel or “in style.” When an object is revalorized as retro in
the secondhand market, Franklin argues it is likely because of its original aesthetic
qualities. Attention to design was part of the post
-war production process, part of
an “aestheticization of everyday life” and a “democratization of art” that charac-
terized the post
-war period (Franklin 2002). This echoes anthropologist Lionel
Tiger’s (1987: A1) observation that
Industrial societies have exaggerated the pompous and finally fruitless difference be-
tween high and low art. We have failed to see that industrial designers are really the
folk artists of our civilization. The work they do, which we may possess innocently
in our homes, is as vital and reflective of our life and times as the ceremonial tr
eas-
ures we line up on museum walls.
Both Franklin and Tiger are making the case that there are intrinsic qualities about
older consumer goods that lead to revalorization. Contemporary retro consumers
observe these qualities, and have the cultural capital t
o recognize the cultural ac-
cumulation of meaning in older goods. Notes Franklin (2002: 100), “Retro con-
sumers are experienced in their total immersion in the world of goods and are re-
flexively interested in them and the contexts of their production. In thi
s sense,
retro consumers are tourists consuming a form of cultural heritage.” Moreover, it
is vintage consumers who ultimately determine which past looks are revalorized.
Jenss (2004: 395) observes that the authenticity of vintage clothing is socially
cons
tructed by vintage clothing wearers who determine which styles of the past
constitute “genuine” looks that sartorially signify a particular decade. This selec-
tivity in regard to which styles represent the fashion of a decade parallels Mac-
donald’s (2013: 119-
120) observation that, “[D]isputes [about authenticity] vari-
ously mobilise ideas about origins....which past –
and whose – will endure?”
The meanings consumers associate with vintage clothing resemble those of
handcrafted or artisanal products. The consume
rs quoted above often assumed
vintage clothing is “handmade,” with a high degree of “integrity” and “craftsman-
ship” in its construction. Likewise, Susan Terrio (1996: 71) argues that craft prod-
ucts:
...make visible both a particular form of production (link
ing the conception of a
product to its execution) and its attendant social relations...Produced in limited
quantities, using traditional methods and/or materials, they evoke uninterrupted con-
tinuity with the past.
Vintage appears to be “craft,” displayed
in today’s boutiques in small quantities
and thus implying they were limited in production. Today’s vintage dress seems
unique rather than standardized because the garment’s copies that once hung next
to it on a store rack are long gone.
Moreover, vintage clothing carries an “aura of pastness” (Samuel 1994) that
evokes a sense of historical continuity. This is most clear in consumers’ quota-
tions that imagine the previous lives of their vintage garments. It is also present in
accounts by th
ose who describe vintage clothing as higher quality because current
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apparel is not made in the same way or from the same type of fabric. This “nos-
talgia” associated with vintage clothing includes different meanings that can en-
compass both idealizations of the past as well as justifiable appreciation of quali-
ties from yesterday’s production methods (Pickering & Keightley 2006). Material
objects such as vintage clothing symbolically become part of a “timescape of au-
thenticity” (Grasseni 2005), embedded with history, which allows consumers to
imbue them with aura and value and wear them with a sense of distinction.
Since the late 1960s, the first
-cycle clothing market in the U.S. has offered less
to consumers in terms of style diversity, garment quality and a
n engaging shop-
ping experience. Thus consumers with cultural capital found in vintage an alterna-
tive market and source of fashionable street style. Authentic characteristics are
attributed to vintage such as it being of exceptional quality, handcrafted, ma
de
from natural fibers, providing continuity with the past and being unique. Thus,
categorizing clothing as “vintage” symbolically marks it with authenticity, distin-
guishing it from both the larger secondhand market and the first
-cycle market that
features
new clothes with retro looks. Revalorizing secondhand clothing as rare,
authentic and desirable through the category “vintage” is symbolically deployed
to mark boundaries between vintage and today’s mass
-produced goods.
Nancy L. Fischer
is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Metro-
Urban Studies at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has broad
interests, publishing on topics ranging from critical perspectives on heterosexuali-
ty, to urban sustainability,