"Thrift Store Chic"

I must admit I was positively giddy reading this week's articles, and (in a very narcissistic, lifestyle affirming way) I was especially beaming with "On Thrifting" and "Fragments of a Fashionable Discourse" and I just have TOO much I want to say about them!!!!

Although incredibly spot on, I do think that "On Thrifting" needs an update.  While reading it I started thinking about how the barriers between first and second order forms of clothing are being increasingly blurred.  Retail stores like Urban Outfitters and Top Shop, and designers like Marc Jacobs and Chloe are designing clothes that look like they are from a thrift store but with a first-order (and often very extravagant) price-tag! Scouring the net for examples of high-end thrift inspired clothes, I stumbled upon an article from The Independent about Chloe’s spring 2002 collection titled “Thrift Shop Chic at it’s Finest.” Here are some quotes: “Sweaters looked as if they had been worn and washed for decades” and “It was thrift shop chic at its finest and at designer prices.” Is it just me, or is that counter-intuitive?  This is taking value-coding to a whole new level by assigning absurdly high prices to clothes that are replicas of clothes that cost a few dollars!

One result of the increasing collapse of first and second order clothing is an increased acceptance of thrift store clothes, via either new "thrift store chic" or the real thing, in mainstream culture.  The articles, Fregoso's in particular, look at counter-cultural fashion and identity as an expression of individuality that violates culturally inscribed positions.  I'm a bit miffed that the articles didn't really address the fact that subcultural styles are still dress codes; how can something be an expression of individuality if everyone that dresses in that way looks the same?  Silverman points out that "deviant dress" is always quickly absorbed by the fashion industry, but that this absorption, instead of neutralizing its political messages, signifies that its "ideological force can no longer be ignored."  I understand this argument, but I'm not sure its possible to argue that there is anything politically subversive in something like Hot Topic.  

I prophesize that if the grimness of our economic times continues, thrift will not only become more and more popular, but also more and more necessary.  In fact, my prophecy is already a reality, as mainstream merchants are struggling, many secondhand stores are posting record sales, up 30% overall from a year ago.  So what happens to its cultural and political message when thrift store dress is subsumed by mainstream culture?  

In another vein, what the articles had trouble reconciling for me was the gap in the theorization of subcultural fashions and their lived experience. Although I very much admire Kathy Acker’s idea of tattoo art as a way to remake the body as a challenge to the way the body has been culturally contained, I don’t know how many of the women that get tattoos think of it in this way. And I don’t know how many women that wear thrift store clothes are, in Silverman's words "re-reading them in ways that maximize their radical and transformative potential" (even though I really want them to be!!!).   

***As a side note, I know for a fact that Marc Jacobs can often be found rummaging the aisles of Western Costume borrowing (or stealing, although you didn't hear it from me) inspiration from Hollywood’s moth-eaten and well-worn history. And he’s not the only one. So now what we read about in Nielson’s article is being filched by the much lauded, prolific, and "creative" high-end designers.