“Twice is Nice”: Secondhand clothing in today’s global world
Clothes, especially of high symbolic and/or material value, were always treasured and passed on to other users as gifts, heirlooms and legacies or given to charity, usually through religious institutions. Although secondhand clothing has a long history, it grew in volume and visibility w...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Institute of Ethnography, SASA, Belgrade
2022-01-01
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| Series: | Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0350-0861/2022/0350-08612201019P.pdf |
| Summary: | Clothes, especially of high symbolic and/or material value, were always
treasured and passed on to other users as gifts, heirlooms and legacies or
given to charity, usually through religious institutions. Although
secondhand clothing has a long history, it grew in volume and visibility
with industrial revolution and the establishment of the consumer society,
the driving force of capitalism. Desire to accumulate the new was always
accompanied with the need to dispose of the old. Partly still maintaining
charitable character, the global used-clothing exchange, starting with the
19th century rag trade international networks, has grown into a
multi-billion- dollar commerce between the global North and the global
South. While used clothes are still considered by some as trash, they can be
a blessing to the world of the poor, a powerful (counter)-cultural
declaration to some groups (e.g., hippies, grunge), or, if marketed as
vintage, a deliberate fashion statement. Whatever the case, they present a
“hot” controversial topic. Nowadays, the way secondhand is viewed and used
around the world, proves again that globalization is a creative process
producing always new forms of hybridization. This paper presents a short
history and diverse views of the phenomenon. The research was based on
multi- sited participant observation and interviews over an extended period
of time. |
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| ISSN: | 0350-0861 2334-8259 |