Why the Revival’s car boot sale is the future of fashion

She had been a wartime evacuee and didn’t take any nonsense; she had what we might now call ‘Blitz spirit.’ The few photos of her in the 1960s show her with beautifully coffered flame-red hair, fur coats and driving gloves. In the ’90s – when I knew her – she still had that flame-red hair (though it came from a box). She’d let me comb it as she sat on the front stoop, giant sunglasses over her eyes – very Jackie O.

I don’t know what happened to that blazer, but when I found the exact same one in a charity shop, weirdly on the anniversary of the day she died, I took it as a sign. I now wear it whenever I need to muster some of her Blitz spirit. It may have only cost me £5, but I really look after that blazer. I give it a good going over with the lint roller; I take it to the tailor when it needs mending, I hang it properly. Because it isn’t a blazer to me. It’s a memory.

Within this story is the power of clothes. They aren’t simply items to cover up our modesty. They’re a way of telling the world who we are. They’re the things our loved ones hold onto long after we’re gone.

And there’s a reason we Brits delight in finding vintage pieces. The styles we replicate for events such as the Revival are entangled with our very sense of being. Of our parents, our grandparents. We may not have been there in person, but we have the stories from those who were.

Time to say goodbye to fast fashion

Fast fashion is a term used to describe the method of manufacturing ‘on trend’ styles at speed and low prices, which began in the early noughties.

According to Barnardo’s, one in three women feel their clothes are outdated after just three wears and yet extending the life of a garment by nine months cuts its carbon footprint by up to a third. You might argue that this cheap and cheerful way of updating your wardrobe has democratised fashion. It’s done anything but. Our clothes aren’t stylish if they’re made at the cost of other people, or the planet. It took the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013 for consumers to wake up to the truth behind their wardrobes. Yet eight years on, and the problem still exists.

“The frequency of high-street trends has created style confusion for many and shopping pre-loved enables you to buy what you truly love without the influence of big brand 'must haves’,” says Maria Bettis, previously a Senior Manager at Harrods, who now runs Accentuate Preloved. “There are an increasing number of small businesses with a real passion for circular fashion, making it easier than ever to shop pre-loved and ultimately encouraging a growing community to make permanent, sustainable changes to their wardrobes,” Maria adds.

The future of thrift fashion

With thrift set to be double the size of fast fashion by 2030, second-hand style is very much here to stay. The future of your wardrobe is to be found in items from the past with many of us shying away from the high-street for ethical and environmental reasons; for instance, every five minutes 10,000 of clothing are sent to landfill; 50 percent of the new clothes we buy will never be worn; and British women have an average of £2,400 worth of unworn clothing hanging unloved in their wardrobes. And yet, we are spending dramatically more on what we were, buying five times as many clothes as we did in 1980. While our wardrobes are stuffed to the brim, post-pandemic, we actually only wear 10 percent of our clothes. Buy why?

As a stylist, ‘overwhelmed,’ ‘scared’ and ‘frustrated’ are just some of the words my clients routinely use to describe how they feel about their wardrobes. Another big problem? Feeling ‘generic.’ Dressing the same as everyone else can stifle our self-expression and creativity. We’re spending our hard-earned money to not feel our best and in doing so, we’re damaging the planet. The solution? Enter stage left, the wonderful world of thrift.

How the high-street will support thrift

With spending power sitting with the consumer and the shift – particularly during the pandemic – of how we shop, retailers need to shift their strategies. Sixty-per cent per cent of clothing stores told ThredUp they are open to the idea of offering second-hand to their customers and if retailers collectively sold one million used items instead of one million new items, they’d save 418 billion tonnes of carbon emissions.

Urban Outfitters recently launched Urban Renewal, which offers pre-loved pieces from its past stock. It’s likely we’ll see more of this in the future, with 42 per cent of retail executives saying second-hand is going to be a ‘big’ part of their business plan over the next five years.

Many high-street stores are closing, and 40 per cent of all purchases will be made on mobile by 2024. I’d argue that this means we as consumers need to learn what suits us, and how to look after our clothes, so we aren’t shopping blindly. I also believe we’ll see a return to concierge-style service. Shopping in-store will become a bespoke experience, and I’d like to see fashion brands work more closely with stylists.

The future of fashion can’t be about piling your basket high and wearing it once. Instead of opting for throw-away pieces, shopping should be about making a conscious decision and asking ourselves ‘do I want to start a relationship with this garment?’ – something that the inaugural Revival car boot sale saw plenty of murmurings of.

We’ll see more services emerge like Clothes Doctor, which allows you to send off items for repair by post and By Rotation, which allows you to rent the clothes from the wardrobes of people who live near you.

And as for ‘charity shops’? They’ll continue to have a ‘glamorous makeover’. “Undoubtedly shopping second-hand is now far more accessible than ever before and certainly online shopping for second-hand clothes has boomed during the pandemic,” explains Becky Becky Barnes, a stylist who specialises in sustainability and has helped people find outfits for the Revival. “Shopping second-hand is one of the ways you can still indulge in retail therapy but with a guilt-free conscience. A lot of people perceive second hand as low cost and while of course this can be true, there’s also the high-end luxury market. There is something second hand for everyone.’

Stores dedicated to the resale of quality vintage and pre-loved designer apparel are popping up at pace, too.

“The public’s attitude towards pre-loved and vintage clothing has been changing for a while now as it is no longer sustainable for us to keep consuming fast fashion in such huge quantities and at such a rate,” explains pre-loved boutique Vintage & Vogue Co-Founder Jenny Barrow. “You will get amazing value for money; our seasonal pieces are priced at roughly a third of their original cost. And if you choose vintage, you can be sure that no one else will be wearing the same outfit as you. Just add a few modern styling touches.”

The joy of thrift

I help my clients see that through wearing pre-loved pieces, you can spend the same amount of money (or in many cases, far less) and find a unique sense of style that doesn’t cost the earth.

Apps such as Depop and Vinted work just as well as those designed by fast-fashion retailers, and give you that ‘new purchase’ feeling without the guilt. So, one tip I give clients is to delete their existing fast-fashion apps from their phones, and when they feel the urge to scroll mindlessly in the evening, try out a site that’s selling pre-loved instead.

A new online marketplace, Reluv, launched recently, which allows customers to browse and buy items from a range of charity shops. As a bonus, you’ll also feel great when someone says ‘I love your dress, where is it from?’ and you reply, ‘it’s vintage.’

Who knows, one day your granddaughter could be putting on a treasured old item, remembering you.

Need some help with finding thrift treasure? Read our top tips here.

Images by Toby Adamson.