Used clothes, the most sustainable fashion alternative
The amount of clothing, footwear and accessories accumulated by each European citizen has increased by 40% during these last decades.And 87% of that merchandise invariably incinerated or in garbage dumps where its slow degradation guarantees decades of greenhouse gas emissions.Less than 1% have use again.The figures dance depending on who is coming to, see the average lifefruited of a garment before discarding it: 7 times, some inform some;10, others tell.In what is unanimous agreement is that such overproduction and rapid waste loop is already unsustainable.
Recycling and creatively reusing the remains of textile shipwreck are two of the solutions that are most affected right now.That is why a note of a recent report by the European Parliament commission in charge of the Action Plan for the Circular Economy: “The way in which people get rid of the clothing they do not change has changed: the strip instead ofdonate it ”.The Oxfam NGO reports: Almost 20% of the young people of the Z generation ensure that, once they appear with an Instagram look, they never put it again.
Even so, or precisely for this reason, in 2030 the used fashion market will have an approximate value of 84,000 million euros.The definitive fact is this: it is the fastest growing textile segment, so much that folds the estimates of rapid fashion."Displacing the consumption of new clothing for second hand means that it is still possibleUsed accessories.The list of similar digital platforms does not stop growing.
Behind the phenomenon, the concern for the health of the planet.A motivation expressed especially by the youngest, determined not to continue contributing to the proverbial carbon footprint of the textile industry, but also seduced by the fashion value of the vintage and exclusive, now that buying used seems to have definitely shaken the stigmaof clothing solution for people without resources.The issue is still relevant, taking into account the precariousness to which many millennials and centenials must face.
"It is a solution for those who want to spend less without stopping a whim or committing in quality," says Beatriz Warleta.Founder of the Spanish online platform for the sale of used luxury pieces Good Karma, in the explanation of it the true nature of this practice is implicit: savings.Hence the name given to the establishments of second -hand articles in English, Thrift Shops, savings stores, origin of a genuine culture in the United States that celebrates even with its own national day (on August 17).
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Of economic need for aesthetic strategy, to end in ethical response.That is the historical cycle of second -hand consumption.The thing begins with charity, poverty."In search of funds to finance their programs to help the most needy, Christian affiliation groups such as Goodwill or the Salvation Army legitimized the clothing business used at the end of the 19th century," explains Jennifer Le Zotte, professor of the UniversityNorth Carolina and author of From Goodwill to Grunge: A History of Secondhand Styles and Alternative Economies (from goodwill to grunge: a history of second -hand styles and alternative economies).In this book of 2017, the historian realizes how what began as a questionable company resulted in a monetarily pingüe, culturally influential and conservative political spectrum and progressive spectrum alike.
The initial bad reputation ended up dissolving as soon as the 1929 Crash and the consequent great depression reached the whole society (and it was not to receive ostentation), a situation that would be repeated in Europe with the postwar period. And then the paradox arrived: on the one hand, the garments and accessories used were elevated to the category of Vintage Merced to the business mile , in the mid -fifties; On the other, they were meant as rebel and answering clothing, symbol of contempt for bourgeoisie and capitalism in Beatnik code (the poet Allen Ginsberg made the aesthetics Thrift Shop his hallmark) and hippy (Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton , Mick Jagger and the hosts of psychedelia that went to I was Lord Kitchener's Valet, supplier of Apolilladas Military Warriors in the days of Swinging London).
The countercultural use of second -hand clothes is so significant that it even served as a tool in the fight for LGTBI rights in the late sixties. Homosexuals, lesbians, trans and drag queens resorted to the Thrift Shops to be able to prove and buy the extravagances that they wanted without raising suspicions. Those visits served to make contact with each other and start organizing as resistance. And in the mid -seventies, the punk and politics of the Do It Yourself (do it yourself) did the rest for fashion. Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood Selling Viejos Teddy -style clothes and shoes in their Let It Rock store. Patti Smith composing the iconic androgynous styling of her debut album, Horses (1975), entirely with garments from the Salvation Army. The New Wave of the eighties wearing retro thanks to the flea markets, where the so -called urban tribes were supplied (the Madrid trail was a hotbed of mods, rockers, accidents and other families seeking to standardize their identities). The adolescent existentialism grunge from the nineties taking out the finger to society accommodated when dressing their discards, with which it blurred the gender and social class roles. It makes sense that current activism continues such tradition as a visual brand of youth declared in rebellion. Although it is still curious how the discourse of sustainability has ended up sistering the clothing narration of the protest with the most frivolous and even aspirational emotion of the vintage.
“Buy is not limited to acquiring things.It is about establishing a connection with them, to establish a relationship.It is precisely this link that has grown today, ”said designer Alessandro Michele when presenting Vault, a brand -new virtual boutique in which Gucci will dispatch his old recovered and restored treasures.And he finished inquiring: "Why a fashionable house with a creative director cannot have a space for expressive, aesthetic and social pollution?"Knowing that no one bites a Gucci - it is also the most valued and searched label also in terms of second hand - why not.
