How does art generate cultural capital?

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The fashion industry, worth $2.4 trillion, is perhaps the most established, classist aesthetic industry. However, fast fashion – produced by mass-market retailers translating trends ‘fresh’ off the runway into inexpensive clothing – drives industry interest and strategy with its quick turnaround and its integral role popular trend cycles. Designs migrate from the catwalk to sale racks at phenomenally low prices, but also from the consumer to the trash at an astonishing rate. American consumerism’s demand for instant gratification strains the industry to push out new products every week, enforcing a quick style turnaround that encourages brands to take toxic, harmful environmental and ethical shortcuts to maintain record-low prices. At an even faster rate, these pieces of apparel break down and end up in the garbage, as the cheaply mass-produced textiles are made to only last as long as that trend or style stays relevant. Fast fashion tycoons such as Forever 21 and Zara allow broad audiences to buy into a social fantasy constructed by false senses of stylish, trendy, and fashionable aesthetics at cheap prices, as aesthetic luxuries of high-couture and cultural affluence are mass-marketed through the democratization of the catwalk. Fast fashion is enforced by growing materialistic and capitalistic tendencies, as pop culture movements – coupled with the commodification of high style and refined taste through digitally increasing accessibility to ‘insider’ fashion – create a double-entendre where the consumer can be trendy and stylish without the hefty cost of high fashion. Fast fashion democratizes trends in apparel, introducing high and refined styles to low and middle-class consumers, as runway pieces, traditionally strictly reserved for the wealthy and culturally affluent, quickly fly off the runway into the closets of a wide variety of consumers.

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Fast fashion’s truncated lifecycle promotes a notion of unconscious consumption that dominates the retail experience, as consumers of fast fashion condone the ill-practices of cheap textile production so much so that fashion has become the second greatest polluter in the world, just behind oil. Cheap textiles cycle in and out of style at such a rapid rate that the consumer constantly replace items in their wardrobe – the inexpensive yet trendy pieces enforce less conscious consumption, inspiring an accelerated and constant urge to buy. The digital expansion and increased accessibility of the fast fashion industry upholds the popularity of single-season apparel, as the dopamine rush a consumer experiences from adding an item in their cart is addicting and as immediate of the click of a button. Americans want products now, and the sprawl of fast fashion tycoons satiates the constant desire to consume with inexpensive pieces that rotate in and out of retail in just two weeks. At the expense of toxic production, exploitive labor, and harmful consumer habits, fast fashion brands have democratized trends and style as a form of cultural currency. Pieces that were traditionally strictly accessible to higher-income, more elite consumers are available at record-low prices that many consumers across all socioeconomic classes can afford. This democratization especially benefits those of lower-income communities, who – with the inexpensive access to high-profile styles – are no longer excluded from the American materialistic addiction, as they can purchase clothing that follow current and popular trends that speak to a greater cultural currency.

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The toxic environmental and ethical implications of fast fashion have sparked industry reformation that supports sustainable production and cleaner, more conscious consumerism. “Slow fashion” is beginning to dominate popular culture and industry attention through by idolizing vintage styles and aesthetics: antiquated and timeworn pieces become unique and rare finds, replacing the appeal of the squeaky, shiny, mass-produced newness of contemporary retail stores. However, the “slow fashion” movement is no populist evolution: the explosion of second-hand boutiques is as undemocratized and elitist as the fast fashion industry is egalitarian and inclusive. The high demand for recycled aesthetic and timely-chic styles has not only encouraged stores to raise prices, but has placed thrift shopping into the hands of the wealthy as an exclusive privilege. Through the resurgence of thrift and consignment stores, the slow fashion movement reforms the consumer experience by aligning luxury capital with rare, unique, and timeless aesthetics. As demonstrated by the popular consignment boutique Round Two, “saving the planet” has become a discriminatory, classist movement, as second-hand apparel stores and vintage, nostalgic, aesthetics rise to dominate the wealth-saturated fashion industry. Thrift and consignment stores now scatter around more affluent geopolitical centers, exemplified by the plethora of expensive “thrift” stores on Melrose Street in L.A., where second-hand boutiques are comfortably located next-door to high-end luxury brands. Newer slow fashion trends combine retail ‘hype’ over rare and inaccessible capital with nostalgic styles and contexts of consigned pieces, creating a new shopping experience that pays vigorous attention to the intricate stories of an article of clothing.

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The expression “slow fashion” was coined in a 2007 article by Kate Fletcher, in which she compared the eco-friendly, sustainable, and ethical fashion industry to the slow food movement: both slow fashion and food industries link pleasure and capital with awareness and responsibility. She explains that “it defends biodiversity in our supply by opposing the standardization of taste, defends the need for consumer information and protects cultural identities tied to [capital].” Traditionally, thrift stores were stereotypically the dimly-lit Goodwill that teens shopped at to find a cheap Halloween costume. However, the inexpensive popularity of second-hand clothing has spread outside of its traditionally marginalized group among lower-income communities, as the vintage, well-worn, and quaint aesthetics of second-hand clothing has been introduced into luxury markets and into popular culture. Thrift stores are both less and more democratized at the same time: at one end, the customers of thrift stores and consignment shops are decreasingly marginalized along socioeconomic lines, as second-hand shopping and textile recycling has spread across all income levels, becoming extremely popular in upper-class communities. Meanwhile, second-hand boutiques such as Buffalo Exchange have expanded upon their brand as the refined thrift store for upper-echelon urban centers, consigning high-end pieces at just slightly lower prices: a markdown which wealthier customers view as remarkably affordable, yet still sold at a price at least double of that at Forever 21.

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Round Two began as a spunky, novel, thrift boutique, upon which owners Sean Wotherspoon and Chris Russow built a second-hand empire out of ‘flipping’ clothing. The store’s success follows the rise of Virgil Abloh – the youngest designer to be nominated for the highly regarded CDFA Award – who started his career by purchasing a series of deadstock Rugby flannels on clearance and screen-printing his brand name across the back, selling them for $550 a piece under his Milan-base fashion house, Off-White. The popularity of Wotherspoon and Russow’s thrift stores thrive from their talent to spot unique, rare pieces in deadstock warehouses (for example, a tattered $1 Madonna tee shirt) to sell as trendy, vintage apparel in their shop, oftentimes for a 500% markup. Round Two also consigns luxury streetwear apparel – sometimes at a five-figure price – and commands popular attention in L.A.’s and New York’s upper-echelon fashion scene, as customers desire scarce and exclusively unique apparel, consolidating the brand as a luxuriously trendy, admirably attractive, and fashion-forward boutique more than a sustainable brand for reclaimed apparel.

 

The success of Round Two has reinforced the uniquely vintage aesthetics of thrift boutiques in the fashion industry, as trends demonstrate popular favor towards more timeless and nostalgic styles that capture the essence of a specific decade. The thrift store – among several others – is popular among celebrities and models, who have endorsed the surge of thrift shopping over social media and in pop culture. In fact, Round Two now operates its own version of the History Channel’s Pawn Stars, releasing television episodes that take audiences and devoted customers behind the scenes of the thrifting industry, highlighting the consignment process, but more flamboyantly showcasing celebrity shopping sessions in the boutique. Social pressure exacerbated by celebrity and digital media endorsement amplify the popularity of the “slow fashion” movement, characterizing the regression from the standardized, cheap, and harmful industry of fast fashion as posh, chic, and trendy. The contemporary appeal of second-hand shopping and the newfound reclaimed fashion industry is rooted in its exclusivity and luxurious nature, as consumers strive to demonstrate wealth and cultural authority; the uptake of recycled clothing and thrifted aesthetics into high-end brands and established fashion affluence emphasizes how sustainability and eco-friendly consumption shape sustainability into an elitist movement that disregards the historical affordability and necessary convenience of buying second-hand.

 

Round Two’s thrifted and reclaimed apparel plays with the capital F in fashion, supporting second-hand as a vogue and respectable style. However, the surge in popularity of recycled apparel and the shift in consumer attitudes towards thrift stores has diluted the cry for careful consumption within the “slow fashion” movement. Even though the more affluent and high-class favor of second-hand shopping has created a pop culture frenzy away from fast fashion by raising awareness against its harmful production methods and toxic eco-impact, the “slow fashion” movement still promotes the same mindless ‘buy-happy’ consumerism that fed the fast fashion industry, as wealthier consumers view the lower prices of consigned items as reason to simply buy more clothes. Ironically, the surge of popularity in second-hand apparel has lead fast fashion brands to incorporate its vintage, nostalgic, and well-worn characteristics into seasonal and trendy clothing, as companies damage clothing during production to create an artificial ‘wear and tear’ that imitates the sustainable aesthetic of recycled textile. The explosive popularity of consignment stores and thrift boutiques has seemingly spiraled out of the “slow fashion” movement, as the fashion industry – regardless of the means of production – has commodified the complementary vintage aesthetics of recycled apparel as well as the sense of duty and charity to the environment that sustainable consumption provides the consumer.

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By aestheticizing sustainability and the environmentally-friendly industry, the “slow fashion” movement commodifies the notion of “saving the planet” as an indicator of class and societal affluence. Fast fashion and slow fashion trends are becoming increasingly polarized along socioeconomic lines, as the rift between the rich and the poor is further exacerbated by the ‘shelf life’ of the clothes we wear, and the world of style and taste becomes increasingly gentrified. “Slow fashion’s” push against the democratization of high style inspires a contemporary regression to unique, non mass-produced pieces by gravitating towards vintage and quaint aesthetics of reclaimed fashion. This resurgence of thrift boutiques and consignment stores – amplified by the endorsement of fashion moguls and those with culturally established style – offers a dangerous, hypocritical, social fantasy of eco-friendly and conscious consumption, as the newfound popularity of second-hand shopping roots itself in the materialistic and ill-practiced notions of the toxic industry it claims to oppose.