The Null Device

Thrift is chic

Some sensible news from the fashion front: conspicuous consumption is out, and thrift is in. Spending less is now not so much a sign of shameful poverty or low social status as one of defiance against the corporate branded lifestyle.
The word 'luxury' has become so overused it has become completely meaningless. For the intelligent consumer it simply means overpriced and overhyped. The new trend towards thrifty shopping is as much about being ahead of the curve as it is about saving money. The cheaper holiday destination might be the one the rest of the planet hasn't quite discovered yet; that old 70s leather handbag you spotted at Oxfam might be the one that a researcher for a big fashion house might snap up if you don't.

Of course, then the brands will start making tatty-looking thrift-chic items, objects fresh from the Indonesian sweatshop that look like they've been pre-worn since the 1970s, and selling them for obscene prices, and the cycle will repeat itself.

There are 10 comments on "Thrift is chic":

Posted by: sam http://www.humbug.net/ Fri Oct 18 14:24:14 2002

They do that plenty already. You can buy those stupid pre-faded jeans. Ugh, what's the goddamn point? Why don't you just save your $80 and buy jeans from an op shop? Or buy comfortable jeans in the first place that will last and then you'll have your own _original_ faded jeans!

Then there's that store, Revival or whatever it's called, on Swanston Street, I think. They scour the op shops for old 70s-style clothing (at around $5 a shirt at the op shops) and then re-sell them for $30. And the people who buy these clothes are the yuppy South Yarrarians who think they're oh-so-cool because they're buying cheap looking expensive clothes. The irony is the people who usually buy them buy them because they don't have any money!

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Fri Oct 18 17:52:43 2002

I don't think Revival sell second-hand clothing, only new clothing, though sometimes modified. (Like those girly-sized jeans from Hong Kong that they spraypaint blobs onto and then sell; why, I don't know.)

Revival have some semi-decent-looking shirts, though for the price I'd probably spend $20 extra and get a Ben Sherman or something.

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Fri Oct 18 17:53:30 2002

Or spend half the price and get a no-name stripy shirt from some place in Smith St.

Posted by: missjenjen http://missjenjen.blogspot.com Sat Oct 19 01:03:28 2002

Just as long as the peasant look, and other associated frippery from the 1908s, goes away, I don't care about anything else. Please, someone make the 80s revival stop.

Anyone?

Hello?

Posted by: missjenjen http://missjenjen.blogspot.com Sat Oct 19 01:04:10 2002

And that's '1980s', of course.

Posted by: Graham http://grudnuk.com Sat Oct 19 02:17:14 2002

Dimmeys, man, Dimmeys.

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Sat Oct 19 14:23:56 2002

I don't know; some of the 80s New Wave-inspired [neo-]electro(clash) music is not bad. (Felix Da Housecat's New Order remix, for example, and Death In Vegas' _Hands Around My Throat_, and that Miss Kittin & The Hacker song...) Though the first Ladytron album grates after a while, and I suspect Fischerspooner are a forgettable novelty act.

I've got a remix project lined up for a certain band, and was toying with the idea of doing it in electroclash fashion; that way it might even get played in Greville St. Though I probably won't (unless, of course, it turns out something like the Gurnin Spacecase Baby Fur Seal Mix of Lilli Pilli Drive).

Posted by: Graham http://grudnuk.com Sat Oct 19 14:49:11 2002

Well, if you do it _well_, there's nothing wrong that. Even better if you start out trying to ape that style and come up with something completely different.

Anyway, I think 604's forced its way onto my all-time top ten, at least for in the meantime, the insidious buggers.

The Felix Da Housecat album that's been out a while? hmm; some of it you'll like, and some of it you _won't_, I think. Some one's probably thrown it out at Dixons or such, try looking for it there...

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Sat Oct 19 15:06:28 2002

Electroclash is one thing, but making it sound original is another. Either that or making it sound cliché in a neo-ironic sense. (See: Baby Fur Seal)

604 sounds interesting at first, but for some reason the tracks start to grate after a while. Maybe it's the sounds or the vocals or the rather predictable structures or some combination thereof. I'm tempted to pick up the Miss Kittin album. Though it may be cheaper in London.

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Sat Oct 19 15:07:21 2002

Oh, and one or two tracks on the new Saint Etienne album go in that direction. Is it a matter of Saint Et jumping on the bandwagon, or having stood still long enough for fashion to have caught up with them?