As you may know, I am passionate about where and how we get our clothes. So the fact that I sell my own variety of vintage and altered clothing may come as no surprise, if you understand why I do it. And if you don't, well, that's what I'm here to talk about! My motivation for selling vintage and altered clothes and encouraging people to wear them consists of several main reasons:
1. Some people don't have the time or skill to dig through piles and find something good, but something good is always there. I mostly hang out with people who will excitedly approach a flea market or garage sale without a second thought, so the existence of people who don't do this is actually a bit hard to imagine for me. However, I know you all are out there, and I want to make awesome vintage clothing more accessible to you. You deserve to be able to wear cute old stuff too, even if you don't have the time or skill to find it! Thrifting is a skill, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Need proof? Just google how many "how to thrift" tutorials exist on the internet. It takes a while to get good at it and understand where you need to look, and how hard, as well as how to evaluate an item and get familiar with values and decades. If learning all that intimidates you as it does some people, have no fear. Madeleine is here to help :)
2. Vintage clothes are beautiful, lasting, and well-made. Vintage clothes are wonderful because they are oftentimes extremely better made than their modern-day counterparts. Know what that means? A shirt that is vintage is likely to last twice as long as a T-shirt from H&M. That's a shirt worth your money!
3. Wearing and buying vintage is way more sustainable than buying new. I went over this in detail when I wrote about why I don't buy new clothes. The basic gist is that as long as you don't create economic demand through your consumption of new clothing, there will be less resources being used to produce less new clothing, which is great! Wearing vintage and altered clothing instead of new clothing results in less economic demand, less resources used, and more resources left over for the planet and the basic needs of other organisms! If you've ever visited a thrift store, you can see that this country does not need any more new clothes made. There are enough clothes already out there to cover the back of every American, and then some!
4. Wearing vintage or altered clothing is original and awesome! One of the reasons I personally love thrifting is that I love finding pieces that just need a little bit of faith and someone brave enough to rock them. Better yet, I love using Etsy to put those pieces in the hands of those people! I also love the challenge of taking ugly and outdated items and altering them into cool pieces that someone will love to wear, and the fact that these pieces are either rare or one of a kind just adds to the cool factor you get from wearing them!
Long story short, I believe that vintage and altered clothing are a more sustainable, stylish, and durable alternative to mainstream fashions and mass-produced clothing, and I want to make this alternative as accessible to others as I possibly can. Feel free to pop into my Etsy shop, or brave your local thrift store if you're the type to do so :)
Love,
Madeleine
Photos: 1, 2
