#49 Vintage
February 3, 2008 by clander
The love affair between white people and old stuff literally goes back for hundreds of years. In the older days, it was almost exclusively contained within the realm of furniture. While white people still love antiques, they don’t always fit so well with a modern lifestyle and kitchen.
Beginning in their late teens, white people begin an obsession with finding cool vintage clothing at local thrift shops and Goodwills. Making purchases at these locations address a number of white person needs.
First, it allows them to say “oh, this? I got this shirt at Goodwill for $3.” This statement focuses the attention on the shirt, taking attention away from the $350 jeans and $200 shoes. The white person can then retain that precious ‘indie’ cred.
Secondly, it allows a white person to have something that other white people don’t. This is an important consideration when trying to determine the worth and ranking of white people.
As white people get older, and the opportunities to wear a “Pittsburgh Special Olympics ’76″ T-shirt diminish, they must move their vintage fetish from clothes to furniture and knick knacks. For a post-30 white person, the mention of a ‘vintage stove’ or ‘vintage card catalog” can send their imaginations racing about how to incorporate it into their current home decor.
By having at least one vintage, unique piece of furniture in a room full of Ikea, white people can still tell themselves that they are unique and cooler than their friends.
When you enter a white person’s home, you should immediately search for anything not made by Ikea, Crate and Barrel or Athropologie. Upon finding such an item, you should ask “where did you get that? It’s really cool.” The white person will then tell you a story about how they acquired it, allowing them to feel cool and giving them a reminder about their fantastic taste.
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Like Commodore B., I’ve loved “vintage” and “antique” stuff most of my life. I don’t know about other people, but I prefer “vintage” things for the following reasons:
1.) Reduce, reuse, recycle!
2.) I’d rather have good-quality used items them poor-quality new items (in this era of “planned obsolescence,” even expensive new items are often poorly made). This applies to houses, furniture, and sometimes clothing. . .but never to socks or underwear.
3.) Old houses and antique furniture are comforting in both the personal and political senses. When I sit in my grandmother’s chair or use her old pots and pans, I cannot help but think of my grandmother. Similarly, our old house survived World Wars I and II, and there is a faded Civil Defense sticker on the edge of the front door, listing the nearest fallout shelter. When I think about the negative historic events our house has survived, I feel saner living in “these times.”
4.) Aesthetics! (Here comes the “white snob” part of loving vintage and antique things.) I love our house’s original woodwork and other architectural details, even though it means living on the edge of what my very white mother calls a “not very nice” neighborhood. To me, it’s a lower-middle-class multicultural neighborhood where, unfortunately, there is some (usually nonviolent) drug activity. On a daily basis, I’m more bothered by the fact that too many children neighborhood children litter.
I suspect the reason that some Afro-Americans don’t like vintage stuff is because when they were children, they HAD to wear secondhand clothes. Growing up with older cousins and an older sibling, I sometimes wore secondhand clothes myself. My feelings about this entirely depended on how I liked the clothes: sometimes I wished my sister would hurry and grow so I could wear a particular dress, and sometimes I wish I’d been consulted before something was purchased. . .
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old people don’t smell so nice.
Pottery Barn, you forgot Pottery Barn. Friends did a whole episode on it you know!
[...] a new old belt. Dash of Ugly Seriously in [...]
Juno’s cunt! What the hell is people’s obsession with wearing used clothing, I preferred it when thrift shops were the exclusive realm of poor people.
Haha I have never had 350 dollar shoes or 200 dollar jeans
But I do have a love obsession with goodwill
and why not
Looking through thrift stores is like finding old treasures and its CHEAP
I guess Im a dutch white person
I just knew this would come on here. People throw the word ‘vintage’ around too much; just look at Hollister/Abercrombie. I’m pretty sure vintage is not super long shirts with a stupid bird or animal on the side.
I’ve been obsessed with vintage furniture and design (and not clothing) since I was fifteen.
What does that make me?
White.
It makes you really cool.
Honestly, most of the wood furniture made today is inferior in craftsmanship anyway, unless it’s handmade. And old stuff smells so nice!
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