The New Flex Is Old
Vintage and archival fashion are no longer what they seem, RIP
Hot Takes are my bullet point thoughts on fashion's hottest issues. These posts get to the heart of why people are talking about what they’re talking about, what this means, and where this could go next.
Let’s set the scene.
By now, we’ve all seen the TikToks: a girl twirling in a perfectly faded ‘90s Jean Paul Gaultier mesh top, a thrifted leather trench that whispers neo-noir, and captions dripping with self-congratulation — “sustainable queen”, “one-of-one”, “Depop score”...
It feels like a revolution: a stylish middle finger to fast fashion and mass production. But squint a little, and the utopia begins to blur.
What began as a quiet rebellion, an homage to forgotten pieces of fashion history, is now teetering on the edge of irony. Vintage fashion and archival styles, once niche and subversive, have been swept into the algorithmic current of TikTok hauls and Instagram reels.
And as with all things that go viral, something is lost in the retelling.
To understand the rise of vintage, we have to look at what it’s really rebelling against: the fast fashion-fication of everything. In a world where Shein drops 10,000 new styles a day, wearing a moth-bitten band tee from 1986 becomes a radical act.
It says a lot about the wearer. That they care. About the planet. About history. About style that can’t be Googled.
For those of us stuck in fashion's endless echo chamber, vintage is both protest and performance: a wearable archive that resists the disposability of the digital age. It’s fashion with a past, worn by a generation deeply anxious about the future.
But that’s only half the story.
The Myth of Meaningful Consumption
There’s a seductive narrative here: that buying old clothes is inherently more ethical. But the moment something becomes cool, capitalism finds a way to repackage and resell it.
Vintage fashion aesthetics have become monetised. They are curated, inflated, and resold at eye-watering markups in trendy archival boutiques or online shops that function more like online gallerists than thrift sellers. In the ten years or so I’ve been actively vintage shopping, it's only recently that I’ve started to feel priced out of a world I once found solace in.
Suddenly, that $15 Salvation Army blazer is $250 because it’s been contextualised next to Margiela runway shots. Add a buzzword like ‘Y2K’ or ‘Avant Apocalypse’ and you’ve got a brand, not a movement. You’ve got people doing their best to outbid each other for something they never wanted or needed, and for what?
The once-radical act of wearing secondhand has been swallowed up by the same market logic that drives fast fashion: endless novelty, performative individuality, and a thirst for more. Only now it’s got a patina of virtue.
Platforms, Profits, and Performance
TikTok, Depop, and Instagram have created a new kind of fashion influencer: the vintage micro-curator. Their power lies not in designing clothes, but in storytelling — spinning historical context, designer lore, and aesthetic moodboards into content gold. This type of content is coming along leaps and bounds, and there’s real value in this narrative.
The problem? Audiences may not always understand or appreciate the meaning and intent behind what such creators post. Fashion folk will care, myself included, but outside of that, who really knows how engaged followers are beyond the scroll.
Vintage, by definition, has a shelf life. There are only so many old clothes to go around. As demand grows, so do shortcuts: deadstock that’s not, reworked pieces sold as original, and misleading mass-produced knockoffs. The line between authentic and aesthetic is blurring fast, and most buyers don’t know enough (or care enough) to tell the difference.
Worse still, the accessibility that made thrifting a democratizing force is vanishing. Prices are rising, racks are picked clean by resellers, and low-income communities that once relied on thrift stores are being priced out by affluent vintage hunters with a keen eye and a ring light.
My two cents.
Here lies the paradox: the more vintage is framed as a sustainable, anti-consumerist choice, the more it becomes a highly consumable product. We’re witnessing the death of vintage as we knew it — not in a literal sense, but in spirit.
It’s no longer just about reuse; it’s about status. A unique find isn’t unique if everyone’s hunting for it. And sustainability becomes meaningless when it’s just another excuse to keep buying.
The truth is, wearing vintage doesn’t automatically absolve you from participating in overconsumption. Buying ten thrifted dresses you’ll never wear is still overconsumption, even if they came from Etsy or eBay instead of ASOS.
This doesn’t mean we abandon vintage, because I know I sure as hell won't be. Nothing thrills me more than going on a vintage or archival scavenger hunt, in a city both new and unfamiliar, unsure of what exactly it is I'm looking for and what I might find.
But maybe we should stop romanticising it as the silver bullet of sustainable fashion. Maybe we hold the movement to higher standards — of transparency, of equity, of actual environmental impact. Maybe we start asking not just what we wear, but why.
Is it an act of self-expression? Reclamation? Nostalgia? Rebellion? Or just another performance — filtered, tagged, and optimised for engagement?
Vintage and archival fashion isn’t dead, but it is at a crossroads. Whether it continues as a thoughtful act of resistance or dissolves into the same patterns it once critiqued depends not on what’s in your wardrobe, but what’s in your mindset.
Because in the end, wearing the past is easy. Learning from it? That’s the hard part.
If you're vibing with this newsletter, subscribe to get weekly doses of fashion goodness straight in your inbox. It’s worth it, I promise.
Want to get in touch?
Follow me on Instagram
Follow me on Twitter
Follow me on LinkedIn