Top 10 Reasons to Give Vintage Gifts This Holiday Season
Lulu’s Vintage has wonderfully inspiring post on top ten good reasons to choose vintage gifts this holiday season. Her ideas are exhilarating especially for those who want their presents to be eco-friendly, unique and authentic. So what are you waiting for? Go green, invest in vintage and remember your beloved ones with a gift with thought!
10. It is the ultimate eco-gift! No landfill packaging. No new use of resources or labour.
9. Craftsmanship. Vintage items were made out of high quality materials and feature unique design details.
8. History. You are buying an item that has proved to be fashionable throughout history.
7. History (part 2). It is fun to own something vintage and think of how a person from a whole other generation appreciated it as well.
6. Uniqueness. No chance of hitting the streets with a new scarf only to see three other people with the same one!
5. Supporting a small business. Instead of lining the pockets of big box stores, you can support an independent business owner.
4. Authenticity. Why buy rip-offs of old designs, when you can get the original.
3. Authenticity (part 2). Why buy something that has been “distressed” to look old when you can get something that has genuine patina.
2. Save some cash. Vintage items are often times much less expensive than new.
1. Don’t participate in the mad rush to the mall. Vintage is easy to find off the beaten path.
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Sanna 17. December 2007 | Shopping Vintage | Bookmark on: del.icio.us
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What a delightful post! :) I have thought about second hand gifts several times, but I think it should be considered carefully who to give 2nd hand gifts to. There may be quite a gap between generations and older people might consider it cheap or in a worst case scenario even offensive. Also there are people who don’t really care for second hand items (which is just weird to me! :D). Anyhow, this is a great tip for all the trendy and ecological minded people! :)
All those arguments for vintage are true, yes, but I think vintage is a bit overrated nowadays. Buying vintage is eco-friendly, but the choices are very limited (and the prices rising fast due to the popularity, at least here in Helsinki) and buying vintage doesn’t bring new jobs to the business (excluding the shop owners).
One alternative to buying only vintage could be supporting the local small boutiques and designers who make their own clothes or produce them in small amounts (often with very tight quality and ethic criterions). They make unique and authentic things too and bring new ideas and choices to the market (and you still don’t need to rush to the mall).
I think the popularity of vintage has a dark side too. The existence of flea markets can in a way encourage unnecessary consuming. It’s easy to shop random things at the flea market because everything is so cheap there, even if you don’t really need them. And it’s also easy to think that you can keep on shopping careless impulse purchases from ordinary shops because you can always easily dump them to the nearest flea market receiver if you don’t want to keep them (and you can even think that it’s charity).
And still the most important thing for the environment is to buy less and pay attention to the quality.
I challenged you in my blog. Check it out! :)
Jenni: You are absolutely right. Approaches to recycled goods are numerous and I, by no means, didn’t mean that we should buy whatever is used to our beloved ones. For example, there are dozens of cute (online) shops around which are selling cool stuff made from recycled/vintage materials. When I want to find something über sweet with a thought I opt for Etsy, among others.
And thanks for the challenge! I’ll check it out later. :)
Anu: Many thanks for giving so much broader view on this topic. :)
What the Top 10 list above really lacks is so called “crafter’s point of view”, if you will. I also think that folks should support their local boutiques and young designers instead of going nuts at high street chains or flea markets.
I totally agree with you that too often thrifters or 2nd hand shop goers fall into the trap of careless attitude, impulse purchases and excessive consumption only because prices at the flea markets are relatively low. Heck, I should be the first one to admit that because that’s the main reason why I started this blog in the first place!
My blog is (or tries to be) a documentation about me struggling to buy less, appreciate excellent craft(wo)manship of vintage items over mass produced stuff and pay attention to the quality and ethics of the purchases I’m making. But I have to admit that all this is sometimes so. damn. difficult. Therefore I really value your contribution to this conversation and I hope more people will find your views inspiring.