When I got a Facebook invitation last month to a clothing swap party downtown, I dismissed it as an event for hipsters seeking to increase their street cred with new vintage items. At least that's what I thought until, flipping through Vogue magazine, I realized that this is a new trend for the fashion conscious.
At a time when stores like Urban Outfitters sell clothes that look like they could be distressed vintage items for a lot more money than they would cost at the Salvation Army, this trend is convenient for students like myself who love clothes, but are working with limited budgets. Moreover, as cost cutting becomes a necessity during this recession, thrifty lifestyles once looked down upon are now considered a virtue in American culture.
In the February issue of Vogue, staff writer William Norwich gives an account of a recent evening dine and swap party attended by fashion heavyweights Ellie Hawke of Christian Dior and new it girl Poppy Delevingne. A group of 10 budget and fashion conscious Manhattanites gathered at the Greenwich Village home of Maggie Bette in hopes of filling gaps in their wardrobes through the swap party.
Guests were asked to bring two to three "seriously viable fashion items" which ranged from clothes, to jackets, to costume jewelry. This was an evening of deals and happy clothing swappers. Norwick recounts: "Ferebee traded her navy Thakoon dress for the low-waisted green-and-black-plaid Thakoon made famous by Keira Knightley in VOGUE . Jessica bartered a pair of Doc Martens for Philip Crangi hoop earrings." Now, not everyone's swap parties are this glamorous, but Norwich's story illustrates a growing trend of reusing and exchanging clothing during the current economic crisis.
According to a recent New York Times column, this past month in San Francisco nearly 80 women gathered for a similar day of fashion frugality. Based on its success, another swap is scheduled for this week where they hope to have around 400 participants. Event organizer and operator of website clothingswaps.com Suzanne Agasi said in the article, "When a woman gets a compliment on a dress she got at a swap or the Salvation Army, she feels almost proud." The pride coming from a compliment on a newly bartered fashion find inevitably eclipses that of a standard department store pickup.
It seems that these newly popular clothing swaps are more than just a way for people to keep their wardrobes fresh in the recession. Instead, they signal a broad return to thriftiness as a virtue in American culture. This shift in public attitude is coming at an important time. The U.S. personal savings rate, which peaked following the Great Depression at 13.5% of income, sunk to a record low of .6% in 2006. American savings has since recovered to 7.1% in 2008 (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis).
Time will tell if this recent increase in savings is a mere trend, or if it's here to stay. As a college student looking with impending dread upon the possibility of entering the work force in less than two years, I know I am more conscious than ever about the need to save money by cutting back on the non-essentials. Luckily, however, when I'm short on cash, nothing is more economically useful or trendy than having fashionable friends with closets to raid.
Weinberg junior Diana Nielsen can be reached at diananielsen@u.northwestern.edu
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