Second hand clothing A baling from past that highlights the cutting edge of the new fashion both in Europe and Africa
Sofia Vilarinho Faculty of architecture Lisbon
The movement of second-hand clothing (SHC) is gaining more and more visibility. Starting from an historical overview of trade, this article aims to examine various contexts in which it has developed, both in Europe (Lisbon) and in Africa (Maputo). Regarding clothing influence, the paper focuses in Western SHC’s to sharpen an understanding of Africa challenge, from 1980’s to nowadays, By stressing both cultural expressions Vintage vs. Chi-calamity as articulators of the “new” garment made by participative stories, dreams and meanings of personal neo-mod narratives, this article seeks to unveil the interweaving fashion-able map of the cosmopolitan cultural landscape both in Lisbon and Maputo.
Introduction Nowadays, second-hand clothing (SHC) is a mainstream movement bearing new identities replete of nostalgia and authenticity. These are two main characteristics that support the post-modern period, where there’s a fascination underlined by the emergent appeal for identity. Since 1980’s the SHC market is considered an international fashion phenomenon that promotes a subculture able to dialogue about the (re) valorization of styles: “Smelly old things have become highly desirable and fashionable (Palmer and Clark, 2005: 174). More recently, on the beginning of 21’scentury SHC identifies unique clothing practices by using a fashion grammar, made stronger by discourse on sustainability and “neo-mod self- image” desire (idem: 174). However, SHC is able not only to give new life to clothes, but also to bring forward memories and to beliefs that encourage trans-coding (Hall, 1997:270). Indeed it also engenders a dialectical and creative dialogue between uniqueness and innovation. Being increasingly a central element for the analysis of culture and history, SHC activates mechanisms of identity; inclusion and exclusion dictated by contemporary fashion projects, but at national and global scale. Fashion and anti-fashion, secondhand clothing, “has become the raw material of new fashion” (Palmer and Clark, 2005: 4). Whereas in Western urban cultural milieus SHC is associated with vintage, style, political attitude and ethics, in the developing world it has become one of the most significant items in the global textile trade - the "detritus of a culture” being off-loaded onto the poorest nations (Palmer and Clark, 2005: 3), expression of the antinomy ”West vs. rest” (Allman, 2004: 2).
It is in this area of overlap between the appropriation and domestication of styles that outline of new "embodied identities", where the off-loading of bailed cultures gives rise to the “new” garment (Hansen, 2009:116) and which “highlights the new cosmopolitanism” (Prestholdt, 2008: 88). This paper is organized around three main parts. In the first part it seeks to briefly present the highlights of SHC global history (focusing on Europe and Africa); the second part discusses both angles of wearing SHC from vintage in Lisbon and Xi-calamidade in Maputo; the third part presents SHC as motivator for a fashion-able discourse and practices regarding Maputo and African Lisbon fashion-street.
1. Second hand clothing: various contexts, various stories, different identity meanings Second hand clothing becomes the material whereby consumers can play with the past to create modern identities (Palmer and Clark, 2005: 173). These political, social and cultural processes develop a user capable of building a rapport and of seeking a regenerative dialogue about their own uniqueness and cultural expression. The thinking over of old clothing pieces is based on the articulated and participative beliefs of a personal narrative that reveals the “post-domestication” (Hall and all, 1997:240), and “new modern cultural identity” (Craik, 1994: 27) shaped from an activist attitude whose challenge fashion stereotypes. Regarding the history, clothing is an integral part of the human being experience materially and symbolically. Clothes promoted important encounters of trades to ‘refashionize’ cultures and identities. Through the course of nineteenth century, an intensive oceanic clothing trade proliferated allowing a web of clothing exchange. A global phenomenon bubbled the desire for redefining the self with transcultural items that were available on different markets. XIX century brought new dynamics on global clothing market, triggering a powerful web of communication process besides an expressive dialogue between Europe and Africa. SHC constituted an important link to enable production and tailoring as also to enable the appropriation of multiple cultural styles and symbols from geographically dispersed places (Allman, 2004:14). On one hand activated the mimesis process on non -Western cultures but on the other hand, highlighted a ‘un –imitation’ process based on a fashion attitude that promoted difference and cherished individuality. “Presented initially to chiefs and important men in Africa” (Foster, 1997: 34), afterwards with the intensification of a global clothing trade in Africa, clothes became the main item that promoted an intensive and creative dialogue between “colonialism and conversion, ethnicity and nation, gender and generation, hybridity and cosmopolitanism, state-building and state authority, subjecthood and citizenship” (Allman, 2004: 5). Focusing on the trades between Portuguese empire and the Eastern African coastal Mozambique, from XIX century on, a variety of records and reports has been done (Alpers,2009; Meneses,2007a; Newitt,1995; Teixeira,1921; Velho,1989 ).Most of the authors accentuated the importance of clothes on the negotiation of power and new identities. Most of the writing accounts of African travelers described that clothes became the currency on the global trade .Western style clothes were exchanges for golden, ivory, slaves and “indigenous” clothes or textiles ( Alpers, 2009;Thomson, 2005) The author Prestholdt (2006: 10) shows that “American clocks, British handkerchiefs and India umbrellas made East Africans list consumption on the second half of XIX century”. At the XX century mass produced garments became at affordable to most European regions and hence – even during European Imperial expansion until nowadays- the African colonies became the “detritus” of a European culture.
Under the influence of stereotyping produced through the Eurocentric perspectives non-western clothing consumption was seen as a form of exoticism (Palmer & Clark, 2006:173). A western style on an African body has a symbol of domestication , or an inner African desire to become a civilized citizen, which however was an enhancer mechanism at the very core of African modernities. On the same logic SHC western has become a pastime while looking for the outrageous beautiful piece of vintage cloth and on third world “eager to cut a fine figure”(Hansen, 2005:106).
2. Vintage in Portugal vs Xi- calamidade in Mozambique With the growing economy in Europe, a consumerist culture was fizzy with the massive supply of the Fashion industry. The prosperous European economy, dazzled richness and variety of vanguard cultures and styles. Tailoring fun out of a new sparkled suit and looking for an alternative lifestyle, this society of excesses desires the new. With the advent of the western consumption society, especially after the Second World War, philanthropic groups and clothing charitable organizations proliferated in both markets throughout the world. They have been involved in collecting and donating clothes to the poor, with a strong emphasis in Africa. (Web encyclopedia). The west’s cast-off clothing has been reconstructed into a desirable commodity (Hansen, 2005: 103). Under a long and intensive period of social and cultural improvement both between fashion nations and the colony, one assists to the growth of a progressive cultural redress and refashioning processes. The nation and “the people have shaped their material culture, including their dress, with commodities and ideas from away” (idem, pp: 112). Most SHC is sorted by category into fifty kilograms weighing bales. Normatively, the good pieces of secondhand clothing are exported to Europe and the lowest grade goes to African and Asian countries. In Portugal, the great increase in the SHC takes place after 1980’s, on the verge of reviving past styles. Avant-garde people become dressed between nostalgia and innovation. The “vintage” costumer was born and gets familiar with cloths from abroad: American sportive jackets, military jackets from post-war Germany, Arab keffiyeh, short skirts and dresses remembering Thierry Mugler hits, among many other examples. This lengthy and colorful list stresses the fascination for a nostalgic world, tailored by the smell of mothballs that grows and “adds infatuation with the surface –sheen of pop western cultures” (Face magazine, April 1993). “Old clothes new fashionable looks” is the slogan promoted by the places specializing in SHC. Flee markets, antique stalls and charity shops, offer a variety of “new” used clothes from global and local sources. (Palmer &Clarck, 2005:174). In Lisbon, and over the last five years, specialized stores with a selected and attractive vintage selection are bubbling. But the hippest place for SHC still is “feira da Ladra. Considered from 1980’s the cult place where people could find not only vintage but also all the underground subculture that was born in Lisbon. If globally “traditionally, practitioners of second hand dressing are the poor and dispossessed” (ibdem: 49), over the last thirty years, and focusing in Portugal, the most fashionable and avant garde people looked (and still) for second-hand because they thirst for style and authenticity. The unique-garment differs distinctly from the homogeneous look developed by fashion industry. Another important factor on the SHC is that, from the beginning of XXI century, this practice highlighted the ethics on consumption (Fletcher, 2008:95) especially in Europe. Green-fashion embraces this movement that is both fashionable and activist. The association of SHC with an ecological movement boosts another meaning able to promote a new costumer: ‘fashion-con’ (fashion consciousness).
Regarding Africa context and Mozambique history, SHC trade borne from another angle: Xicalamidade (xi-calamity). The clothing one puts on one’s corporal self helps to mark one’s place in humanity (Foster,1997 : 69). However and regarding the cultural patchwork on nations there are “signs of partial hybridization of national cultures“ (Featherstone, 1990:188) and the global clothes trade had a particular role on this process. Mozambique a pluralistic littoral city with its mixed population of Mozambique Africans, Malagasy, Comorians, Swahili, Antalaotse, Arabs, Indians, Portugueses, and mixtures thereof, not to mention Dutch, English, American and French traders (Alpers, 2009:180) and non-traders made part of “Mozambique channel” besides impositions of colonial rule the included military defeat, the imposition of taxes, forced labor, forced cultivation, the imposition of chiefs and headmen and the presence of foreign missionaries ( Hay 2004; pp: 67) and also an appropriate style of dress which balanced the national costume. Especially on a period between the two wars, up to the end of colonial rules, capulana (the traditional Mozambican textile) was mostly forbidden on the urban centers and has been replaced by western clothes. The thick SHCtrade for the underdeveloped countries fueled by charitable organizations has fertilized the homogenization of heterogeneity by implementing the messianic mission to "save the world”. Far away from the “Mozambicanity”, the condition of being a “Portuguese resident” was supported by clothing rules and religious practices (Meneses, 2007). Rocking from desire to need, and “behind financial hardship second hand items provided something new to wear “(Clark, 2005: 156). In post-colonial Mozambique contexts, the citizens, (re) affirmed the construction of the identity. And after the 80’s two phenomena happened at the same time. On one side capulana became the national symbol (the term can be related with political developments) and on the other the SHC imports proliferated. Clothes imported from Europe, America and Australia was desirable for their difference, especially American clothes were (and still) the hype item, because of the representation of “Americanness”. Almost a fifth of the country’s population, wears today SHC. Wholesalers in Mozambique import SHC from textile dealers in EUA, Australia and several countries in Europe. Used clothes constitute a wide web of retail and distribution that gives direct employment to a hundreds of people. This market moves tones of used clothes per year and if was an item mostly sold on the markets places (as for example Xipamanine market) xi-calamity is actually sold in downtown Maputo. SHC sold on bales of 45 Kilogram’s is the symbol of urbanity, civilization and cosmopolitanism (Ross, 2008; Foster, 1997). Selected by 45 categories SHC (re) identifies and (re)creates the “Otherness”. In fact, the contribution of SHC, underlies from an examination of clothing and its contexts therefore provides insights into local identities and global markets (…) and the reshape of meanings, markets and forms (Rovine, 2006). The “new” garment (Palmer & Clarck (2005: 116), that “highlight new cosmopolitanism” (Prestholdt, 2008: 88) is sold intensively on Maputo streets. Western Shoes, belts, bags and clothes are exposed -after a strict selection- on the streets as in a fashion store or are dumped in piles on the ground which complicates the process of commodification (Hansen, 2005:110). When shopping from Xi-calamity, most consumers look for western fashion trends, but they look for uncommon clothes, as they look for “exclusive”. When lucky they can find high Fashion brands mixed with casual brands. Simultaneously ‘yours and worldly ‘, this process keeps far from subjugation by promoting new style readings trough a meaning of a piece of cloth is given when on the body. The result of (re) signification underlined besides the European clothing on an African body” encourages styles that draw another clothing cartography and another social constructions of gendered and sexed bodies” (idem: 114). African tailors, are important agents on the SHC trade. They are responsible for the deconstruction, customization and rearrange of western ‘mimesis’. They outline a "new garment" by using knowledge seized by oral tradition. Therefore rescue of traditions and the decoding of the new
culture dressed by a latent eminence between Western and Africa and the representation of a post – colonial identity. Capable of conceiving/forging the world- to- come, tailors are important social elements in the integral development of African society. The produced clothes enable the user of being capable to build a rapport and of seeking a regenerative dialogue about their own uniqueness, and cultural expression based on the articulated and participative beliefs, dreams and meanings of a personal narrative that reveals the “post “domestication (Hall and all, 1997:240), inside a “new modern cultural identity”(Craik, 1994: 27).
3. SHC, a creative patchwork of stories from the ‘other’ Wearing the clothes of "another" is to continue and re-create a story of identity that makes the formerly passive homodiegetic narrator (Craik, 1994: 55) an active and fashion-able protagonist. The desire for uniqueness produces a rearrangement of the garment, or asks for a sparkly combination of clothes to achieve the total look. SHC is made out of a patchwork of cultural items. At odds with some scholars, when the West is everywhere, Africa is also visible if we (Europeans) look from another chair of behavior and meanings. The “Ethnic” fashion classification becomes out of fashion when looking for the potentiality of style that comes out from the African interpretation when mixing cultures. Working on visual communication spheres, “clothing and adornment specifically elucidate the wearer’s conceived and projected identities and ideological values” (Green, 2009:194). The next selection of pictures proposes a comparative looking on both countries Maputo and Lisbon and highlighting the self- free expression of identity. A cosmopolitan new generation in Maputo, is ‘free’ to mix appropriations as second-hand colonial school uniform refashioned on a hip-hop trend (fig:5) or to exhibit a fashionable look that mixes originality on a trendy language that aspire tradition with modernity.(fig:6).
Fig 5: Three students in school uniforms. Maputo, 2011 (by the author)
Fig.6: Maxaquene, Maputo 2011(by the author) In Lisbon, the ‘children ‘of African diaspora are provoking the local fashion system. Creative people delineate the best outfit to impress with a story. Storytellers, they bring the memory of crosscultural encounters that permeates fashion system. These personas are working on local fashion normative, deconstructing the rules to develop fashion synergies on style. Most of them prefer SHC and a mixing of them with cultural references. On this context this fashion makers bring a light to Lisbon Fashion Street. And the street become a laboratory where each one tells is own story trough apparel.
Fig.7:Courtesy of Wilma Nicole . She is wearing Zara shirt with Vintage spotty blue dress.Lisbon
Conclusion Clothes are a component of a social game, in which individuals exchange symbols and codes (Erner, 2004: 197). By mixing styles, cultural garments, different periods and memories the user become a fashion-able narrator while co-author on his own story. SHC opened a powerful clothing context. A place where the user activates cosmopolitanism practices. A powerful trade made of garments that were doomed to uselessness, enables new identities made out by clothing life cycles that promotes the cutting-edge of the new fashion. As Morrman (2006: 85) stresses, that movement enable the advance of “nation- building project” besides a global uniformity tendency. Alternative modernities (Ross, 2008: 11) bubbled from the Westernization paradigms of domination on the “other”. Wearing SHC enables the development of different type of self-affirmation. Both in Europe and in Africa born the necessity to affirm “This is who I am”. The discourse negotiates an identity made by the resurrection of past others. However from different perspectives as analyzed before, we can consider this mechanism of representation both in Europe and in Africa. In fact most SHC retro designs need a little arrangement that better fits the body of the “fashion-homogeneity” independence neo-mod. An “arrangement ” to better fit the “post-modern” body’s necessity of selfimage and fiction. The costumer explain himself trough the narration of his own story made by the representation of the ” other “that lived in a specific time and space. SHC mindset is an emergent protagonist of cultural fashion trends and catwalks. Its presence draws the bias cut of the representation of a “new” identity and consequently a fashion that should be considered. Upon this perspective, SHC clothes can produce powerful post-modern reaction, on fashion system. Here empowered by a fashion-able movement and a new language that should make part of the Fashion Glossary on the XXI century.
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