Vintage: An act of conservation?

[ClaraB]

A good portion of my vintage wardrobe comes from various local attics. An elderly loved one dies or moves into assisted living and the remaining family members clean out the home, usually finding a wealth of vintage treasures their loved one had acquired over the years. Living in a small town has its perks as I am known for my style and occasionally find myself in a position to "inherit" or purchase these wonderful hand-me-downs.

These hand-me-downs have lead me to ponder something recently:

Vintage clothing is acquired many different ways, but consider what would happen to it if there wasn't a community of people, like us, who was interested in wearing it? Likely, especially in situations such as the one I described above, the clothes would be thrown away.
I know many here consider collecting vintage items an act of preserving history, which it most certainly is, but has anyone considered their vintage collection as an act of environmental conservation?

Instead of these items ending up in the trash, they are finding new lives in our homes and closets. Although this idea can be applied to any vintage item, I find myself considering conservation when it comes to clothing. Today's fashion is more or less disposable; cheap items made to last for the few seconds they might be in style and then thrown away. Through vintage fashion I am abstaining from purchasing the disposable fashion of today and preventing great vintage pieces from ending up in the trash.

Just my two cents and perhaps some food for thought.

 

[Foofoogal]

Your post sure hit a nerve of mine. It is almost scary when you think about it. I totally see it this way. Nothing gives me more satisfaction then taking a very dirty vintage piece of clothing (or anything vintage for that matter) and preserving it. I am currently trying to find someone that can bead to repair a marvelous dress.
My all time favorite was a horribly dirty trench coat I bought for a dollar. The lady thought I lost my marbles at the sale. It even had rust stains on it. I washed that baby and it turned out to be the prettiest London Fog butter yellow spotless trench may I say. Sold it for a pretty penny.

Recently I went into an antique mall and asked to see any vintage clothing. The lady that owned the place looked at me like I had 3 heads. She could not imagine anyone buying these old clothes. I may have to test the waters just to prove her wrong. To me this meant no competition.

cheap items made to last for the few seconds they might be in style and then thrown away.

Seems the housing is the same I fear. How unreal.

 

[Tiller]

Environmental? Without a doubt no. Cultural? That seems to be the word that fits best for me at least. I think most of us are conserving a style, and the culture that goes along with it. Even though it maybe a bit more idealized then it ever truly was when our parents, and grandparents lived through it, I still think it is safe to call it cultural conservation.

From the people who go all out, to the people who just buy fedoras, or world war two leather jackets, their is without a doubt (IMHO) the idea that we are conserving what these clothing items, mean to us all culturally.

The same way that neo-hippies either dress as "vintage" hippies, or use reproductions, we do the same with the Golden Age. Clothing sends a message.

 

[jamespowers]

Your post sure hit a nerve of mine. It is almost scary when you think about it. I totally see it this way. Nothing gives me more satisfaction then taking a very dirty vintage piece of clothing (or anything vintage for that matter) and preserving it. I am currently trying to find someone that can bead to repair a marvelous dress.

Recently I went into an antique mall and asked to see any vintage clothing. The lady that owned the place looked at me like I had 3 heads. She could not imagine anyone buying these old clothes. I may have to test the waters just to prove her wrong. To me this meant no competition.

Seems the housing is the same I fear. How unreal.

A lot of things are quite disposable today and there is supposed to be a great environmental renaissance.
I believe it to be real and actual conservation without the snobbish "look at me conserve" attitude that is prevalent. Actually, conserving int he way our forefathers did will get you strange looks and likely looked down upon by these same people. :eusa_doh:
Years ago, if you ripped or tore an item there was always the local cleaner or tailor that could easily reweave the item to save it for further use and wear. Today you are lucky to find someone who even knows what that is!
Add that to small appliance repairmen, people who sharpen kitchen implements and a host of repair people who go wanting for work today. People just throw it away and buy a new one---whatever it is.
It is completely understandable in some cases though. For instance, I have one of those canvas over steel frame gazebos. After several years some of the canvas screening has ripped and one zipper isn't working right. I call to get replacements and find that I can buy a whole new one for less than the replacement parts! So I buy a new one and use the old one somewhere else. [huh] Industry itself has made just fixing something not feasible with either planned obsolescence or part ripoffism. :rage:

 

[Foofoogal]

Same thing with televisions. You can buy one cheaper than fix one if by any chance you can find anyone to do it.
I am still trying to figure out how environmentalist will deal with the millions of tvs that will be disposed of come June. Talk about pollution.
http://www.wgbh.org/article?item_id=3779510

 

[jamespowers]

Same thing with televisions. You can buy one cheaper than fix one if by any chance you can find anyone to do it.
I am still trying to figure out how environmentalist will deal with the millions of tvs that will be disposed of come June. Talk about pollution.
http://www.wgbh.org/article?item_id=3779510

Then if you can find a guy to work on the TV he wants $40 just to look at it. Same for a DVD or VCR. :eusa_doh:
I suppose there are enough metals and such that you can recyle some of it in TVs et al but this whole transfer over to digital has made quite a killing field for old TVs.[huh]

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think about this a lot, actually -- I was raised in a culture where wastefulness wasn't only considered stupid and arrogant, but actually sinful. To this day the idea that products are *designed* to be thrown away rather than repaired and reused simply sickens me.

Sure, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of conservation becoming a trendy hey-look-at-how-green-I-am kind of thing -- it strikes me as like congratulating someone for having enough sense not to step in front of a bus -- but I hate wastefulness even more. Promotion of a "throwaway culture," be it clothes, appliances, furniture, or whatever, is one of the great crimes this generation will one day have to answer for. And I don't think that's hyperbole.

 

[Foofoogal]

I am currently looking at homes and am stunned and I mean stunned by what I am finding. I see them as disposable by very little stretch. I must of lived in a cave the last 15 years.
No wonder many are walking away and I am sure this adds to the current problems.
I also was raised by those who see wastefulness as a sin Lizzie.

 

[jamespowers]

Add me to the list of being raised with wastefulness being thought of as a sin as well. You are fotunate enought to have what you have and then you turn around and dump it when there is still plenty of life left in it? Nah, don't think so. :eusa_doh:

 

[Lady Day]

Conservation is trendy, because you have nearly two generations who were never taught the value of repairing something. Its new or no way.

I have a friend who bought one of those cookie cutter town homes, and they were there from lot selection to finished construction. I asked her why didnt she buy an older home, and she looked at me like I was crazy. She said something along the lines of "This is new, Im the first one here, so I know where its been."

So yes, it will be ickfully 'trendy' for a time, until it becomes a lifestyle as those here have mentioned.

LD

 

[Foofoogal]

I honestly knew a woman that would throw away a garment when a button fell off of it. As no.9 of 11 children it was truly fascinating. I had never seen or heard of anyone doing such a thing. Of course I showed her how easy it was to sew a button on but I think she was not interested. I wonder if she is lately as I no longer have any contact with her.

Conservation is trendy

I sure wish those luck who will try to conserve the homes I saw. Only a few years old or new and already having problems. We actually were told by a realtor trying to show us a new home where you pick the colors that the cracks in the cement foundations were typical and ok.
Sure they are.

Like I said before the last 10 years or so can be summed up in one word. "Hype"

 

[Joie DeVive]

I tend to think of it as historical conservation more than environmental conservation, but I guess that it qualifies as that too.

I'm another one raised with the idea that wastefulness was a sin. I mend my clothes, and it's only when there is more mending than sock that it becomes a rag. I wish it were easier to locate fabric recycling programs, because eventually those rags have about had it too, and I'd like to send them on their way to be something useful. My Dad used to tell me about "the rag and bone man" from when he was a child who collected those things for recycling. Interestingly enough, with the economy what it is, metal scrapping has become more common again.

I think it used to just be the lifestyle. "Waste not, want not." Then for a time (Babyboom and beyond?) society was so flush that nobody considered it wrong to be wasteful. My Mom had fits when she aided in a Science class in an elementary school and the kids would jam the pencil points into narrow spaces and break the points on purpose. I wouldn't have dreamed of doing that as a child... [huh]

 

[Hemingway Jones]

True conservation would mean that you are keeping your vintage clothes in hermetically sealed boxes in temperature controlled rooms. Anything less than how the Smithsonian would care for them means that you are slowly destroying them, sadly.

That being said, they are better served on you than tossed in a land fill or forgotten in an old attic.

 

[jamespowers]

True conservation would mean that you are keeping your vintage clothes in hermetically sealed boxes in temperature controlled rooms. Anything less than how the Smithsonian would care for them means that you are slowly destroying them, sadly.

That being said, they are better served on you than tossed in a land fill or forgotten in an old attic.

I think the right word here is probably thrift. We aren't exactly preserving the clothes for another generation to see by squirreling it away but likely what we have done is going to last a while rather than dumping it out as you mentioned.
What we are saving is further "environmental destruction" (yeah right) by not contributing to landfills, creating a greater demand for raw goods etc. That would be the conservation part. Thrift is doing things in a way so as not to waste anything because you might need it later soon after you threw it away. I always think about this when I am raking leaves in the backyard with the same rake my grandmother used or even my son getting to wear his grandfather's sweater from when he was just a few years old. Yes, I wore it as well so its making its way to its third generation.
Yeah, I know now that is cheap.

 

[ClaraB]

True conservation would mean that you are keeping your vintage clothes in hermetically sealed boxes in temperature controlled rooms. Anything less than how the Smithsonian would care for them means that you are slowly destroying them, sadly.

But if I did this, what would I wear? Besides I'm sure the Smitsonian and such has plenty of clothing properly stored in order to preserve history.
I suppose what I am getting at is the fact that many garments and wares from the golden era and more recently still exist and are still perfectly good, so why does anyone buy new what they can get old?
Somewhere along the way we just started buying, perhaps with the notion that more equals better, or more equals happiness. Somewhere along the way we also started throwing out, at some point I think we even discarded the idea, "make do and mend."
Now we live in a world where it is eccentric or strange to wear a perfectly good jacket because it is a few years/decades old. It is discouraging to see the general wastefulness of my fellow college students. These people are the very near future of our world and are some of the most unaware, wasteful and materialistic people you'll find. It is actually quite scary.

 

[ClaraB]

What we are saving is further "environmental destruction" (yeah right) by not contributing to landfills, creating a greater demand for raw goods etc. That would be the conservation part.

Yeah. That was what I was getting at.
And I do realize even if everyone in the world started thinking this way and began to use what they already have it still wouldn't slow what is already happening. Doomed is what we are, but at least we can feel better about ourselves and our less disposable lifestyles.

 

[Miss RM]

Sure, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of conservation becoming a trendy hey-look-at-how-green-I-am kind of thing -- it strikes me as like congratulating someone for having enough sense not to step in front of a bus -- but I hate wastefulness even more. Promotion of a "throwaway culture," be it clothes, appliances, furniture, or whatever, is one of the great crimes this generation will one day have to answer for. And I don't think that's hyperbole.

I'm an environmental scientist by trade, and I agree wholeheartedly with that statement, Lizzie Maine! I'm completely appalled by our throwaway society. I started dressing vintage mostly when I decided to buy as many of my clothes as I could from thrift stores. It turns out that I loved the older styles the most! Now, I'm beginning to sew more of my own clothes, as I can get more styles I like in my size that way. Still, I would consider this to be more environmentally sound than buying the latest fads and needing to replace them the next season. I'm always mad at myself when I DO fall for modern fashion and buy something that's quickly out of vogue. That happens pretty rarely these days, as my favourite styles are all at least 45 years out of fashion

I do consider myself a conservationist. It's not just the clothing, though, which I will end up wearing out in time... but the other ephemera of previous ages. I buy up just about anything I see in thrift stores that hails from decades previous to the 1960s. I can't stand the thought that these articles will be either landfilled when they don't sell, or go to homes where they won't be appreciated for what they are. I've seen terrible things done to vintage cameras, books and dinnerware in the name of 'art'.

 

[jamespowers]

I can't stand the thought that these articles will be either landfilled when they don't sell, or go to homes where they won't be appreciated for what they are. I've seen terrible things done to vintage cameras, books and dinnerware in the name of 'art'.

Yes, there is where I stand on many vintage things going the way of the dodo so some idiot can make jewelry out of it or some ridiculous hodge podge "art piece" (and I do mean PIECE ) to grace a stand or wall of a plebian art consumer somewhere. :eusa_doh: Just great. :rage:

 

[Paisley]

Joie, there is a paper maker named Ray Tomasso (sp?) in Englewood. He takes cotton rags.

 

[Miss RM]

Yes, there is where I stand on many vintage things going the way of the dodo so some idiot can make jewelry out of it or some ridiculous hodge podge "art piece" (and I do mean PIECE ) to grace a stand or wall of a plebian art consumer somewhere. :eusa_doh: Just great. :rage:

One of the WORST things I've seen was at a giant yard sale a couple of years ago. Two ladies in front of me walked up to the seller with a complete set of early 50s dinnerware (I can't remember the pattern). It was pristine and beautiful and I gasped, realizing they were going to get the whole set for three dollars! Then one of the ladies gleefully said, "Oh, we're going to take them home and smash them for mosaics! WHAT!?!?! I can totally understand repurposing broken or unusable items into art ... but to destroy a whole set!?! ... and for 'art' that will likely only be appreciated for a couple of years before it's considered 'tacky' and thrown away!