Dawn O’Porter’s new Channel Four show ‘This Old Thing’ is a vintage education.
For years now I have been trying to convince the people of Fermanagh and beyond to choose Vintage and pre loved fashion.
I’m not saying that you should only wear vintage but instead mix it up a bit with items from the high street.
I have always said that cheap ‘fast fashion’ cannot possibly be a good thing. In light of recent events with Primark, where customers found ‘SOS’ labels stitched into items of clothing, there has never been a better time to step away from the huge chain stores.
Although nothing has been officially proven, Primark have recently released a statement saying that following their investigations they can only conclude that the labels are an elaborate hoax. Having examined the labels from items bought from their Swansea store Primark believe that they have came from the same source yet both garments are from two different suppliers, one in Romania and one in India and therefore the labels must have been sewn in at a later point and not from the factory they were supplied from.
As regards the cropped trousers bought in Belfast, Primark are still investigating this with the factory in China. Whether the incidents are a hoax or not it still doesn’t excuse the fact that these factory workers do work long hours and sometimes in dangerous conditions. Look at the recent incident in Bangladesh when a factory where garments were being made to supply fashion houses in Florence collapsed killing 1,129 workers.
Although garment production does provide many in third world countries with a steady income; mass produced clothing, which is made with low quality materials, are not designed to last, hence the reason why they are sold so cheaply.
Clothing nowadays is simply not designed to last due to the fact that we live in such as fast society with fickle tastes and changing demands. Trends change so often that the fashion industry has to keep up with this and provide it at a reasonable price. With cheap clothing that you can just throw away when you are fed up with it and buy the next latest trend, what incentive is there to buy vintage or pre-loved? One major incentive is the fact that you won’t find anyone else wearing the same outfit as you. The new channel Four programme ‘This Old Thing’ hopes to convince the UK that vintage is the way to go.
At last the word is getting out there that vintage clothing is not only unique and special but also much better quality with a lot more durability than modern clothing. It’s great to see the vintage revolution spreading to prime time TV. The UK mainland has embraced the vintage revolution and in fact seasonal trends are now emerging in even vintage lines. For example people are now hunting for fifties circle skirts, tropical prints and kimono jackets; tropical prints also being very popular this season on the high street.
Unfortunately Fermanagh has not yet caught the vintage bug, however I hope that this new Channel Four programme will encourage people to consider vintage as an alternative to the high street
