“Don’t tell me life doesn’t begin at eighty,” said the octogenarian who had just returned from her honeymoon. She looked jaunty and radiant, and her equally venerable new husband had a distinct twinkle in his eye as he nodded in agreement. I always love seeing newlyweds embracing the future with such visible joy. True, they don’t know how many years they might have ahead of them. But then, does anyone?
Living in a society obsessed with youth, novelty, and cutting-edge technology, I take tremendous pleasure in people, places, and things with a very long past. It’s one of the reasons I can never resist vintage shops, flea markets, and garage sales; for me, they’re treasure hunts, not just because I find cool and unusual stuff at bargain prices, but because they evoke so many memories and constantly tickle my funny bone.
A decorator friend who has puzzled over my house for years recently had an epiphany. “I know what your style is,” she announced triumphantly. “It’s whimsical!” Yep, she’s right. They say your home reflects your innermost being, so apparently my quirkiness isn’t skin deep but goes to the very depths of my soul.
My collection of pre-owned, pre-loved stuff includes some vintage clothes I’ll wear until they fall to pieces. The pace of modern life is so rapid, with such constant change, it’s nice to slow something down, if only the turnover in my closet.
Luckily I’m not alone in this attitude. Thrifting (as it’s now called) has become a $28 billion industry, and some second-hand clothing retailers predict that by 2029 it’s going to eclipse fast fashion — although that may be more aspirational than realistic. Still, I’m delighted to know that lots of young people are choosing clothes with a past over the cookie-cutter disposables flogged by corporations.
I met one young enthusiast last Thursday when we were both browsing through vintage clothes at Shoffeitt’s Off the Square Collective in Healdsburg. Michaela told me she’d been hooked from early childhood, when her mother used to take her on expeditions to second-hand shops, searching for stand-out clothes. “The quality is so much better. They’ve already lasted a long time. If you’re wearing fast fashion everyone’s already seen it before. It’s fun to be unique. I definitely get the most compliments when I thrift it.” She added, “Fast fashion is always a little behind on trends. Fashion goes in circles, and I like to predict what’s coming and get ahead of it. When [a style] is everywhere, that’s when fast fashion starts to put it out there.”
Just how fast is fashion these days? A few years ago everyone was dazzled by the Spanish chain Zara; their designers could see something on a high-end runway and get cheap knock-offs into shops in just three weeks. Now they’ve been blown out of the water by the Chinese juggernaut, SHEIN (pronounced she-in), which does it all in just three days. SHEIN produces small batches — only 50 to 100 pieces per new product — and goes for volume, delivering up to
a million new products a day
via online sales. No wonder it became a $100 billion company in just 14 years.
Of course, SHEIN has pesky little issues with quality control, trademark disputes, and allegations of human rights violations, slippery tax practices, and health and safety issues. And there was a lot of blowback when people noticed they were selling a necklace with a swastika on it, which SHIEN insisted was a Buddhist religious symbol that had nothing to do with Nazis. (Yeah, right.) The necklace was pulled offline, the controversy died down, and everyone went on shopping. Because cheap, trendy clothes are irresistible to most consumers.
The French — long time leaders of the fashion industry — have come up with their own novel solution: subsidizing the repair of clothing and shoes. The idea is to encourage citizens to hold on to decent stuff rather than replace it with junk. A private company is spearheading the project, offering reductions on repair bills of $7 to $28 per item in an effort to stem the flood of discards. With 92 million tons of garments winding up in the world’s landfills each year, the UN is predicting fashion will soon become the second most polluting industry in the world.
While there’s clearly some moral satisfaction to be gained by shopping for second-hand goods, for me it’s mostly about fun. Rich and I have spent countless hours at the monthly Alameda flea market (officially it’s the Alameda Point Antiques Faire, but nobody calls it that). There are more than 800 stalls, each quirkier than the last. Outrageous furniture. Eccentric art. Gorgeous clothes you can try on and imagine yourself wearing in another life or parallel universe. Casts of footprints they claim are Bigfoot’s. And countless other oddities you won’t find anywhere else.
Including laughter. A kid once set up a chair at the Alameda flea market and offered snippets of humor for 25 cents. Yes, of course, I immediately dug out a quarter and handed it to him. This was many years ago, and I can no longer quite recall which of my favorite puns came from him that day. It might have been “I checked out a book on anti-gravity. I can’t put it down.” Or maybe he said, “I thought about putting an observatory in my house, but the cost was astronomical.” Possibly it was something else altogether. Whatever it was, Rich and I spent the rest of the day chuckling over it. Best quarter I’d spent in a long time.
“What’s past is prologue,” William Shakespeare famously wrote in 1611, and (underscoring his point) those words remain equally true today. Everything that has ever taken place, from the Big Bang onward, has been the run-up to this very moment. It all provides the context in which we understand our lives and make decisions, large and small, that will define our collective future. We have much to learn from the past. “The best qualification of a prophet,” the Marquis of Halifax once remarked, “is to have a good memory.”
Being around ancient objects helps me keep that in perspective. The oldest thing in my home is the fossil of a seven-inch mollusk called a cephalopod; I found it one day on the edge of the creek that ran through the woods beside our house in Ohio. The fossil is around 300 to 400 million years old. It’s small, flat rock that somehow remained intact through the appearance of amphibians, mammals, and birds, the disappearance of the last dinosaurs, and the rise of humans. Eventually it drifted out of a drying lakebed, tumbled about in various rivers and streams, and finally wedged itself into a pile of rocks, where I happened to spot it on a walk. The improbability of its survival is breathtaking.
And I take comfort from that. That fossil, and all the other venerable people, places, and things I encounter, make it clear that life is unpredictable, and that sometimes, we’re just lucky enough to beat the odds.
JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS’ WORLD TOUR SO FAR
IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS’ TOUR OF CALIFORNIA
It’s Only a Movie. Or Is It? (Bodega Bay)
Why I Spray-Painted My Shoes (Theme Weddings)
Please, Please, Please Don’t Ask Me to Sing Karaoke (San Anselmo)
Keeping It Strange & Wonderful for Future Generations (Fairfax Festival)
Why Isn’t Anyone Banning My Books (Alameda)
When Pigs Fly (Yes, They Can!) (Sacramento Pig Races)
Do You Believe in Magic? (Alameda’s Macabre Market)
My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space)
The Nutters’ Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen)
Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown)
For Nutters, There’s No Place Like California (Petaluma Chicken & Egg Day)
Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour?
SPRING 2023: THE NUTTERS’ TOUR OF SPAIN
Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona)
I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona)
Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo)
Travel Alert: You Can’t Always Get What You Want..
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(Madrid & Burgos)
Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos
(Ja
én & Valdepeñas)
All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing)
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