It is now a well-circulated fact that the fashion industry is the world’s second biggest polluter after oil. Unsurprisingly, this has shocked many consumers into the pursuit of a more sustainable way of dressing. As a result, the second-hand clothing trade has embraced – for better or for worse – a surge in popularity.

Second-hand shopping in charity and vintage shops, and on eBay and apps like Depop, has become not only a sustainable way to dress but also a way to express individuality against the mainstream current of mass-produced fast fashion. Second-hand clothing is often conceptualised as something both antique and unique. It is easy to imagine, then, that second-hand clothing shops are a modern invention, a response to modern anxieties about sustainability and individuality.

The second-hand clothing trade, however, has existed quietly for centuries.

In 1700, second-hand clothing stalls were scattered across London, in both the East and West End. They existed mainly to clothe the poor but also benefitted the emerging middle classes.

Second-hand clothing dealers in this period were usually skilled tailors, and the business was considered both respectable and profitable. Merchandise was often sourced from servants who transported their wealthy employers’ discarded clothing to the markets to sell. For them, there was more merit in making a profit from a gifted item of clothing than wearing what would be considered socially inappropriate. These upper-class fashions would be repurchased and worn by the urban merchant class, much to the dismay of contemporary commentators.

While the second-hand trade flourished throughout the eighteenth century, industrialisation in the nineteenth century made new clothes more affordable and thus caused a relative decline in the second-hand clothing trade. However, second-hand trade remained a central way for the poor to buy clothing, and it was at this point that it became associated solely with poverty.

The stigma surrounding the second-hand has been memorialised in the writings of Charles Dickens. In 1836, he reflected with horror on the second-hand clothing market in Monmouth Street:

… To walk among these extensive groves of the illustrious dead, and to indulge in the speculations to which they give rise; now fitting a deceased coat, then a dead pair of trousers, and anon the mortal remains of a gaudy waistcoat …

The second-hand clothing trade became a ‘burial place of fashions.’

The rich history of the second-hand clothing trade has largely been forgotten by scholars and curators. Indeed, as Madeleine Ginsburg pointed out: ‘the staples of the nineteenth-century second-hand clothing trade are most of the items missing from most museum collections.’ By the time the ‘history from below’ approach to museum curation became popular in the 1970s, the second-hand clothes for the poor sold on market stalls had long disintegrated.

Dickens’ contemplation of the deathliness that surrounds second-hand clothing remains something Western society still negotiates with today. Second-hand clothes are perceived as dirty, and in them is the lingering sense of another unknown body – indeed, we must give our purchases from charity shops a good wash before we wear them.

Some second-hand business owners still choose to accentuate the fact they are ‘pre-owned’ (many businesses prefer to use this term to second-hand). In an interview with i-D Magazine, Hokkiee, the owner of the cult vintage shop Zen Source Clothing in Tokyo, expressed his effort to make the interior ‘really feel like somebody’s personal closet’.

Similarly, The Grotesque Archive, a Berlin-based vintage shop on Depop, collects grotesque and uncanny second-hand designer pieces, capitalising on a strange, deathly aura only second-hand clothing can capture.

Much like its eighteenth century counterpart, second-hand clothing today is a profitable business. Twenty-first century vintage shops are fashionable and innovative, and often marketed towards a trendy, environmentally conscious, and affluent consumer. It goes without saying that those who are able and can afford to shop sustainably should. However, as increasing popularity in second-hand clothes drives up the prices in charity shops, perhaps we should keep in mind the second-hand stalls of past-centuries: primarily an affordable (and sustainable) way of clothes-shopping for those who could not afford the alternative.

By Kathryn Reed

Sources

Nicky Gregson and Louise Crewe, Second-Hand Cultures (London, 2003).

Vivienne Richmond, Clothing the Poor in Nineteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 2013).

Madeleine Ginsburg, ‘Rags to Riches: The Second-Hand Clothes Trade 1700–1978’, Costume 14 1 (1980), pp. 121-135.

Eilidh Duffy, ‘The Grotesque Archive Is the Vintage Shop Harnessing the Power of Depop’, Another Magazine, https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/12953/the-grotesque-archive-is-the-vintage-shop-harnessing-the-power-of-depop

Eilidh Duffy, ‘Inside the best cult vintage stores: Zen Source Clothing’, i-D, https://id.vice.com/en_uk/article/jgxvvk/inside-artifact-new-york-fashions-most-exclusive-designer-archive

Those who use facial recognition technology to unlock their smartphones may have found themselves recently unable to do so, the phone’s technology rendered useless when the cameras are no longer able to ‘see’ the faces of their owners behind now-ubiquitous face masks. Ever since facial recognition technology came into use in public spaces, privacy activists have been formulating tactics to avert its gaze. However, their methods have spanned far beyond the use of simple socially (or legally) mandatory face masks, ranging from t-shirts printed with celebrities’ faces (the delightfully named ‘Glamouflage’ by Simone C. Niquille) to a crowd-funded prosthetic mask reproducing the face of Leo Selvaggio, who has, in an unusual but noble gesture, sacrificed his own facial identity to offer privacy to others. A ‘wearable projector’ by Jing Cai Liu is also available, which casts shifting and ghostly images of strangers’ faces onto the wearer’s own.

Not all designs are so uncanny. Isao Echizen’s scientific goggles studded with LEDs would look at home on the shelves of neon-spattered ravewear emporium Cyberdog. The CHBL Jammer Coat, designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au, is embedded with ‘metallized fabrics’ to ‘block radio waves’. It is architecturally beautiful with undulating quilted segments covered in a swelling sea of black dots “reminiscent of Yayoi Kusama”, ostensibly to confuse cameras. Some techniques, including ‘CV Dazzle’, are so appealing that the possibility of avoiding detection could be demoted to a secondary part of their appeal. Artist Adam Harvey designed ‘CV Dazzle’ a decade ago, using a combination of colourful hair extensions, graphic makeup, accessories and gems to ‘dazzle’ the (now largely defunct) Viola-Jones face detection algorithm.

The reasons to obscure one’s face are many and ever-increasing as facial recognition technology is harnessed by powers unknown. According to Larry Anderson, editor of SourceSecurity.com, “algorithms can […] identify traits such as ‘calm’ or ‘kind’”, as well as demographics, and use this information for marketing purposes – he’s not clear to what extent these practices are in use. Away from the private sector, governments around the world use facial recognition for law enforcement. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Hong Kong’s government banned face masks after protestors wore them in an attempt to avoid identification and persecution. Following the death of George Floyd, encrypted messaging service Signal distributed ‘anti-facial recognition masks’ to protestors for the same reasons. In addition to government surveillance, individuals are able to harness facial recognition software for their own means. In March, a writer for The New Yorker met with Kate Bertash of the Digital Defense Fund who reported that anti-abortion activists were photographing those who entered clinics in a possible attempt to track down their home addresses.

The paradoxical effect of many wearable anti-identification systems is that they draw much more human attention to the wearer. Chloe Malle experimented with ‘CV Dazzle’ in a piece for Garage magazine and found that passers-by “swivelled en masse to look and chuckle,” and one woman, horrified, ushered her daughter away from the writer. Now that face masks are omnipresent, the movement for facial concealment may be given the space to flourish and become mainstream. It appears, however, that new designs will continue to be necessitated, as technologies like ‘thermal facial recognition’ are already beginning to be rolled out—and those in opposition to it will be pushed towards yet more creative and technological innovation.

By Lucy Corkish

Sources

https://www.businessinsider.com/clothes-accessories-that-outsmart-facial-recognition-tech-2019-10?r=US&IR=T

https://www.sourcesecurity.com/insights/anti-surveillance-clothing-facial-detection-adam-harvey-sb.22164.html

Dressing for the Surveillance Age by John Seabrook, in The New Yorker, March 16, 2020 Issue

https://yr.media/tech/guide-to-anti-surveillance-fashion/

https://garage.vice.com/en_us/article/bvgdzv/under-cover

https://cvdazzle.com

The Right to Hide? Anti-Surveillance Camouflage and the Aestheticization of Resistance by Torin Monahan, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies Vol. 12, No. 2, June 2015, pp. 159–178

The rise and regulation of thermal facial recognition technology during the COVID-19 pandemic by Meredith Van Natta, Paul Chen, Savannah Herbek, Rishabh Jain, Nicole Kastelic, Evan Katz, Micalyn Struble, Vineel Vanam, Niharika Vattikonda in Journal of Law and the Biosciences, Volume 7, Issue 1, January-June 2020, lsaa038, https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsaa038

2020 has been the year of the collar. Seen on the Fall/Winter catwalks of Gucci, Celine and JW Anderson, what was once perceived as a playful accessory during fashion week has taken on a whole new significance since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March. Uprooted from our everyday lives and thrust into the digital realm of Zoom where our appearance is confined to one small square from the shoulders up, the collar, whether it be an oversized-Peter Pan number or ruffled Victorian style neckline, provides a channel of self-expression amidst the monotony of working-from-home dress. As Natalie Kingham, the buying director at MatchesFashion.com, states: “Ornate Peter Pan collars are definitely having a moment, as they are perfect to wear working from home for Zoom meetings.”

No one knew better the power of the collar as a means of self-expression than Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As the United States’s second female Supreme Court Justice who fought for gender equality throughout her career, Bader Ginsburg broke through the patriarchal barriers of American law. She embodied the same feminist sentiment in her penchant for collars taking the judge’s robe, a uniform designed for men, and feminising it. As she recalled in an interview in 2009, “You know, the standard robe is made for a man because it has a place for the shirt to show, and the tie”. Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female US Justice, “thought it would be appropriate if we included as part of our robe something typical of a woman.” Bader Ginsburg and O’Connor wore lace jabots for the Supreme Court group photo in 2003, a controversial choice made by these two women to embrace their femininity in the male dominated workplace.

As Bader Ginsburg’s career progressed, she harnessed the semiotic power of accessorising, wearing different collars to give her opinions on rulings. As a Justice, she was required to remain neutral on most matters. The sartorial channel of the collar allowed her a small but significant means of expression. She had her “dissenting collar”, a bejewelled Banana Republic necklace on a black base with an armour-like appearance, worn to express disapproval. As she said to Katie Couric in 2014, eyeing up the collar’s metal spike-like beads, “it looks fitting for dissent”. She famously sported this collar the day after Donald Trump was elected President in 2016.

Then there was her collar of approval, the “majority opinion collar”, which she wore to announce rulings for the court. A crocheted yellow and pink collar with gold appliqué detailing and flowers, it seemed an appropriate sartorial choice to express agreement. Perhaps her most famous collar was white crochet jabot she brought back from a trip to South Africa. It was simple in design, with no embellishment or colour, but was worn on the most important of occasions—namely Barack Obama’s speech to congress at the 2012 State of the Union and on her 20th anniversary as a member of the bench in 2013. It was this collar that was printed on the cover of the New Yorker to pay tribute to Bader Ginsburg when she passed away in September. On the cover, the crochet detailing was manipulated into the form of the female gender symbol.

Bader Ginsburg’s use of the collar as a tool for self-expression shows how a small sartorial detail can go a long way in asserting one’s own personal style, but may also hold the power to communicate cultural and political ideas. As we remain (for the moment at least) confined to the world of Zoom, we can take inspiration from her use of the collar, and fashion ourselves an identity from the neck up.

By Violet Caldecott

Sources

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/25/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-trademark-collar-dominates-week-of-tributes

https://www.ft.com/content/1a8a270d-7a4d-41d2-9f5d-b0265296aa17

https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story/2020-09-23/life-lessons-ruth-bader-ginsburg-collars

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/g34097013/ruth-bader-ginsburg-collars-meaning/#:~:text=Though%20she%20had%20many%20collars,her%2020th%20anniversary%20on%20the

We are still in the infancy of learning how to mimic and maintain something of the in-person experience online. In the early stages of lockdown, there seemed to be something promising in the ability to access renowned museum collections online, often in minute detail and with 360-degree tours. As our worlds began to narrow to our domestic spaces, how thrilling to be able to move from the Louvre to the Prado with the switch of a tab – how unprecedented (to borrow 2020’s favorite word)! While there is certainly something to be said for increased access and the democratization of art, virtual experiences and events across the board have proven to be lacking. If you cannot move seamlessly around a sculpture allowing its narrative to unfold, or be drawn to a new piece because you caught a glimpse of it in the next room over, or share in the experience with others in the room, there is undeniably a missing human emotional element, crucial to the arts.

This must be all the more true for fashion, whose materialism is essential, and whose location on the body increases the need to take into account this very materiality. With cancellations of couture week in July, and likely carrying over to the fall, the future of fashion presentations and fashion week lies online. Clearly in this transformation much must be lost. How can movement, transparency, intricacy and emotion be captured in the virtual world? What are the implications for such a material and corporeal industry?

How can clothing make itself felt virtually?

In short—it can’t, yet.

This past weekend London served as the first of the four major fashion capitals to take a week of shows and events into the digital realm (Shanghai became the first fashion week to pivot to an entirely virtual event this past March). Though scheduled to fall during London’s menswear slot the event was technically gender-neutral, the first time in its 40-year history that men and women’s collections “showed” side by side. Hosted exclusively on the “LFW Hub”, the event featured fashion films, capsule collections, playlists, poems, panels and live performances. Few designers actually showcased new collections given the economic fallout of the current global crisis, but they were presented with the opportunity and freedom to translate their creativity into the digital sphere in different mediums and formats, resulting in myriad new ways to convey a brand’s identity and values. While the weekend was certainly full of challenges, much can be gleaned about the place of the fashion industry in the current world climate, and fashion’s potential futures.

Entering the Netflix-like homepage of the event, it was not obvious that this was a site centered around fashion. The mix of media—videos, visual art, poetry, music—read like an interactive magazine; few images even involved clothing, focusing instead on the personalities behind brands. Many household names were notably absent (Burberry, Victoria Beckham, A-Cold-Wall), choosing instead to wait and show during women’s fashion week in the fall, perhaps dulling the excitement for many but leaving space for new talent to emerge. There were certainly some standouts among the current pool of young designers, who used the opportunity to make themselves and their ideologies known.

A few highlights included the LVMH Prize winning Nicholas Daley and his short film The Abstract Truth, presenting a new look at his most recent fall fashion show and highlighting the music of South London jazz musicians Kwake Bass, Wu-Lu, and Rago Foot. The film was grainy, conveying a sense of nostalgia—for the Black Abstraction Movement of the 1970s, the collection’s main inspiration, and perhaps for the pre-pandemic world. It seemed almost strange to see so many bodies crowded in one space, models moving to the music and lining up not six inches apart. Martine Rose—one of the more established names of the LFW Reset—partnered with London-based retailer LN-CC to release a “Late Night—Conscious Campaign” centered around waste, crafted entirely from deadstock. Charles Jeffrey canceled a virtual dance party in favor of a “talent showcase” highlighting Black creatives and urging viewers to donate to Black Pride UK. This decision echoed the sentiments of many designers who felt odd promoting new collections in the midst of protests and pandemic, several revoking their participation altogether.

Consistent throughout was the use of fashion to advocate for larger causes, many designers focusing on sustainability—arguably the industry’s most pressing issue—but several, like Jeffrey, responding to the Black Lives Matter movement and current global protests for social justice. This ability to be reactive and sensitive to current world issues demonstrates how nimble designers were able to be outside of the traditional confines of a physical presentation where looks, makeup, music, seating are decided well in advance—a particularly positive development for fashion, so often seen as being out of touch.

Several additional positives offered promise: The definition of fashion was questioned and broadened—how can fashion be conveyed through music, in a poem, without physical clothing? Sustainability was clearly at the forefront of thought, with many designers considering new ways of working, creating, producing, traveling, shooting. The democratization of fashion was furthered—the same experience was made available to a far broader audience—consumers, buyers, tastemakers alike.

But there are still many hurdles and unknowns to figure out. It is clear that whether you’re an established fashion house or an emerging brand, it will be a challenge to get people to pay attention without rows of photographers, celebrity appearances, posts and reposts across social media—commercial viability is called into question. The digital platform lacked the same excitement, the “sense of urgency or the anticipation that grows while you are sitting and waiting for catwalk theatrics or a hot debut,” be it from the audience or watching a livestream from home. There was a tangible absence of star power without some of the industry’s largest players and brands and their tantalizing new creations.

Ultimately, it is clear that as of now, the digital equivalent was not (yet) a successful replacement for the traditional week, lacking the human aspect of the physical show. Gone was the vibration of music through the crowd, the scramble of backstage beauty, the street style shots taken as the lucky few entered venues. Were artistry and emotion adequately translated online? Not in the traditional visceral sense, hearts stopping as otherworldly designs and beautiful fabrics passed by. But this was merely an experimental step and the beginnings of a road map for a future that is undoubtedly here to stay. As designer Iris Van Herpen stated: “It will take time before you can put your own language into that new tool, but I do feel we’ll be able to transmit that emotional aspect of the garment into the virtual reality.” Time will tell—Milan and Paris are up next in July—but it is clear that those who are hesitant or slow to adapt to the new ways of being will be at a severe disadvantage.

Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/style/london-fashion-week-digital.html

https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-features/iris-van-herpen-virtual-reality-fashion-1203554662/

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/jun/12/london-fashion-week-drops-elitist-traditions-as-event-goes-fully-digital

https://hypebeast.com/2020/6/london-virtual-fashion-week-roundup

https://www.10magazine.com/tv/nicholas-daleys-aw20-film-the-abstract-truth/

https://www.harpersbazaararabia.com/featured-news/what-you-need-to-know-about-london-fashion-week-mens-first-virtual-showcase

Images:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/style/london-fashion-week-digital.html

https://fashionunited.uk/news/fashion/charles-jeffrey-highlights-black-creatives-at-lfw-digital/2020061549377

As lockdown starts to ease throughout Europe, the Haute Couture Imperium has started to reopen slowly but questionably. With high-profile events gradually being cancelled for the rest of the year and customers now being followed by overly-eager-to-clean employees in department stores, it seems as if the world was settling into a “new” normal.

However, over the past week, the pandemic seems to not only have accelerated, but forced big designer brands into a more carbon-conscious spread of fashion (at least for now). Indeed, as household names gradually pull out of the massively-publicised Fashion Weeks (FW), designers and creators are finally starting to question the real and immediate legitimacy of FW in the twenty-first century.

Although many are unaware of this fact, FW actually originated during the Second World War, when American journalists found themselves unable to enter Nazi-occupied France for the season’s ‘new looks’. Eleonor Lambert, an American fashion publicist, believed this to be the “perfect” opportunity to promote local designers and American fashion which had long been on the back-burner of Paris and London. And voilà, NYFW was born.

A bit over half a century later, FWs have evolved into long-awaited social events, showcasing the dos and don’ts of the season in front of (literally) rows of famous people sharing their ‘favourite looks’ on Instagram and making us lowly people feel a part of it all. But quite frankly, in the midst of this information overload, it becomes clear that some designers have felt the pressure to perform and deliver on time, and consequently, have been sacrificing their creative drive.

Now, with the uncertainty of social interactions at events looming over Luxury Houses, many designers have indeed taken a moment to reflect on their creative process behind-the-scenes. Amongst the many brands using the pandemic as a way to reshape their artistic expression are Saint Laurent and Gucci.

The latter’s creative director Alessandro Michele is already much beloved for having redefined chic Italian menswear, ultimately playing on a more androgynous style. In the search for a connection with creativity, he has decided to distance himself and the brand from the more ‘commercial’ aspect of FW by withdrawing the household name from it and by choosing to showcase only two collections a year. In extracts of his personal diaries published on Gucci’s Instagram, he goes on to explain in what ways the fast pace of fashion nowadays does not allow him to feel fulfilled creatively. This comes only a couple of days after Saint Laurent also drew back from the FW schedule to focus, not on set and specific deadlines, but on its own “creative flow”.

These trends of ‘going back to their creative roots’ is clearly setting a new pace for Fashion which seemed to be going down a hole of “who’s-who” rather than on the actual clothes and designs. The lack of focus on creativity as mentioned by Michele has indeed been a debated issue in recent times, with discussions regarding the environmental viability of hosting four shows in three cities in one year. Not only is the carbon footprint of such travelling massive, but the ever-changing looks and materials used are not exactly environmental-friendly. Some designers are however already taking full advantage of the whole world only being accessible digitally, with Congolese designer Anifa Mvuemba already putting her creative spin on a digital runway.

Covid-19 has thus ultimately promoted a more eco-friendly FW in the short-term, and how these new houses’ take on Couture will ultimately reflect and affect the fashion industry in the foreseeable future remains to be seen. The greater impact of digitalising Fashion Week would perhaps be on the hosting cities’ economies, as it yearly represents a major source of revenue for restaurants, clubs, hotels and tourism in general.

As lockdown comes to an end, it remains quite clear that the virus does not, and it will be interesting to keep an eye out on how the public’s interaction with Haute Couture and its creative side will ultimately evolve. And whereas this period of quarantine has been a period of self-reflection on the little specks of happiness and fulfilment in life for some, others were fast to queue up at Zara and Pull&Bear as soon as it re-opened. Needless to say that fast-fashion will be disappearing anytime soon, but maybe for now, think before you shop, and think locally.