Vintage or Nostalgic

The wave of vintage-wearers over the past two decades proves that fashion isn’t like technology, transportation and pharmaceuticals in that newer isn’t necessarily more desirable.

British philosopher Francis Bacon said, “Fashion is the only attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse”. This living form of art holds power – power to control a part of one’s image. A person can play a role, embody a story, or represent an era based on what he or she chooses to wear.

"Fashion is inspired by youth and nostalgia and draws inspiration from the best of the past."

Lana Del Rey

Vintage is the co-opting of the past to define the present. Nostalgia is the re-living of the past to escape the present.

The rise of nostalgic consumer goods is also apparent beyond fashion. Examples

include cars (e.g. the reappropriation of the MG, Leigh et al. 2006), film (e.g. silent

black-and-white movie

The Artist 

won 5 Academy Awards in ‘an evening suffused with

nostalgia’, LA Times, 2012) and books (e.g. the reissue of the 1950s ‘Golden Books by

Random House, see randomhouse.com). In marketing this trend has not gone unnoticed.

Brown et al. (2003) ascribe the revitalization of old brands to a revival of nostalgia, since

customers value past products over contemporary ones.

In the early 21st century, this sense of nostalgia can be observed in all layers of societies

(Lowenthal 2011). Individuals compensate ‘dislocation’ – caused by a fast-changing soci-

ety – by invoking the past. Earlier, Berger et al. (1973) defined nostalgia as a metaphysical

‘homelessness’ that becomes increasingly prevalent in plural and fast-changing societies. In

an effort to achieve steadiness within this society, a longing for a home arises (cf.

Duyvendak 2011). Turner (1987) sees nostalgia as ‘a mood of particular importance in

contemporary cultures in association with the loss of rural simplicity, traditional stability

and cultural integration’ (p. 152). Nostalgia, as visible in vintage and in many other forms of consumption – thus refers to alienation. 

http://www.academia.edu/4776660/It_is_not_old-fashioned_it_is_vintage._Vintage_fashion_and_the_complexities_of_21st_century_consumption_practices 

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