Secondhand September

Saying you're a secondhand shopper has the same cool factor attached to it today as hanging out in Lillie’s Bordello did 20 years ago. Whereas wearing “nearly new” used to be the preserve of eccentric bohemian types like Marcus’s mum Fiona in the 2002 film About A Boy (brilliantly played by Toni Collette), showing up wearing something secondhand today marks you out as a fashion sophisticate. Nothing invites kudos quite like returning a compliment with the triumphant response, “It’s from a charity shop.” Pre-Covid, it was the sartorial equivalent of serving your own baked bread, but now everybody’s doing that (me included), so it’s more akin to the prestige of making your own jam (I’m not there yet). What puts many women off secondhand shopping, though, is the fear that they’ll walk out looking like Imelda May before her makeover. While some women, including May, could pull off this retro style beautifully, most of us would look like we’d clashed badly with a clothes bank.

Did you know, though, that this is Secondhand September? Were it not for Instagram, it would have passed me by too, I’ll be honest. Oxfam is asking consumers to pledge to shop only secondhand for the month of September in order to support its stores and help save the planet. It’s a brilliant idea, and to me, makes more sense than the #nonewSeptember initiative I’m seeing on Instagram because, firstly, small, local retailers need our support, and secondly, not shopping at all is neither a sustainable or an appealing solution to the ethical and environmental problems caused by the fashion industry. Encouraging individuals to shop secondhand is, however.

Unlike fast fashion, it’s a slow process and one that requires, as author and stylist Annmarie O’Connor explains, “patience and persistence”.

Annmarie has a beautiful collection of secondhand items and, for me, she is one of the poster women for how to create a modern look with vintage and pre-loved pieces. That’s the trick with secondhand shopping; it’s knowing how to approach stores with a modern eye and with a view to creating a contemporary look, regardless of which decade the pieces on sale may be from. “Vintage and secondhand shopping brings me equal part pleasure and purpose,” Annmarie says. “Aside from the joy of finding something truly unique and well-made, there’s a legacy inherent in each piece. I’ve already allocated an executor to my vintage collection in my will – no joke.”

She’s building a sartorial legacy, and I think this is an idea that would appeal to many women. According to Geraldine Carton, co-founder of The Useless Project (formerly Sustainable Fashion Dublin), women have an intensely emotional connection to clothes. At the beginning of this year, she told me, “The women I meet have become sick of buying clothes that fall apart. They want good-quality items that tell a story and reflect their individual style rather than falling in line with copy-and-paste trends.” Never has this sentiment felt more appropriate than now in the midst of a pandemic; fashion trends seem irrelevant at this moment. In the September issue of Irish Country Magazine, in fact, fashion journalist Ruth O’Connor compiled “The Anti-Trend Report”.

There are a variety of ways you can shop secondhand, from vintage stores, such as Miss Daisy Blue in Cork; to pre-loved designer shops, which include Siopaella in Dublin; to charity shops like Oxfam, Enable Ireland and Barnardos countrywide; and finally on websites, such as Beyond Retro and Vestiaire Collective. I was an avid charity shopper when I lived in London. Among the treasures I found were a D&G (the younger sister label of Dolce & Gabbana, which folded in 2011) cashmere top, a pair of vintage Levi’s and a pair of Prada boots. Back in the early noughties, items cost next-to-nothing; I paid, I think, £8, £15 and £20 respectively for these items. Times have changed, and it’s not just inflation that has upped the cost of secondhand items, it’s the increased demand and the style status associated with them.

Perhaps that’s what puts some women off. They have an image of secondhand clothes as cast-offs, but with prices equal to or above high-street fashion. The reality is that a lot of items you’ll find on preloved websites and designer exchange stores will still have the tags on them and others will have been worn only once or twice. Vintage is a different story – obviously the clothes have been worn – but what I have found is that these stores are generally beautifully curated and merchandised, and the items themselves immaculate. They have an inherent value because of their historical importance and because there are a lot of vintage clothes collectors out there. Charity shops are the jumble sales of secondhand shopping, and I don’t mean to do them a disservice by saying this, because they’re almost always well laid out and you can find the most wonderful gems there, but you do have to root around.

I love a good charity shop rummage. When you find something fabulous, the feeling of euphoria, pride, and – being honest – smugness is second to none. Anybody (with money) can walk into a high-end department store and stride out with a beautiful, covetable item, but it’s not so easy in a charity shop.

The pain is always worth the gain though. I have yet to buy from a secondhand website. I find them off-putting in truth, because the imagery is often poor, but I think they’re great for sourcing specific pieces that you may have missed out on or couldn’t have afforded full-price. That way, you’re not reliant on the picture posted as you’re already familiar with the item. Trinny Woodall often combs Vestiaire Collective in this manner.

The best way to begin shopping secondhand is to identify which kind of customer you are, i.e what’s your not-new fashion personality, so to speak? I’m not a vintage customer like Annmarie O’Connor. It’s just not a look that works for me. Preloved, yes, and one of my favourite stores in Dublin is No38 in Ranelagh. Last year, I picked up a Chloé shirt (€125) and a pair of J Brand jeans (€75) there, while Cobbler’s Wardrobe in Sandymount is somewhere I’m desperate to visit. I’ve spent a lot less time in charity shops in Dublin than I did in London; unfortunately, I was spoiled by the quality of merchandise and prices in the fashion capital. But it’s definitely time to revisit, especially now that I’m a freelancer on a budget.

Like working from home, you’ll either love secondhand shopping or hate it. If it’s the latter, there’s plenty of other ways you can shop sustainably and support local retailers. Either way, going forward, we all need to “shop with purpose”. This is the phrase sustainability manager at the National Council for the Blind and country coordinator of Fashion Revolution Ireland Carrie Ann Moran used when I interviewed her. The 37-year-old has bought nothing new in eight years besides underwear and tights (the former she buys in organic materials and the latter she’s found in recycled fabrics). Her message is refreshingly non-preachy, however. She advises: “You don’t have to go cold turkey and punish yourself with nothing new for the next year. Try it for two months, or pledge to only shop second-hand for six months. If you are going to buy new, then buy local and buy the very best you can afford.”

That sounds like a pledge we could all make. After all, as I read on Instagram recently, “We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly.

Read more of Marie’s articles on life and style…
Do We Still Have Fashion , Silence no More and Difficult Women

Are you a second-hand shopper? Tell us in the comments box below…