We catch up with Zoey Goto, author of Vintage Style: Inside the Dapper World of Retro Enthusiasts about sustainable fashion and why its more important than ever to live consciously…
It’s second hand September. Oxfam, has declared it so. This includes vintage style, sustainable fashion and all other things that might fit under the umbrella. According to Oxfam’s figures, we are sending 13 million items to landfill that weigh the same as the Empire State building each week. The charity recycles an amount as heavy as the Eiffel Tower every year. It would take one person 13 years to drink the water needed to make one pair of jeans and a single cotton t.shirt. Jaws on the floor? It gets bleaker. This is only the picture for the UK and doesn’t include figures for the rest of the world. However, on a far more positive note globally, secondhand fashion is set to overtake fast fashion within ten years.
So what’s next for those who want to remain fashionable without destroying the planet? I caught up with Zoey Goto, author of Vintage Style: Inside the Dapper World of Retro Enthusiasts, about making more sustainable choices. The most important of which is buying secondhand and making it look spectacularly good.
Zoey is no stranger to fashion. “I worked in fashion PR for big-name companies such as Dover Street Market and Fondazione Prada. My favourite part of the job was organising shows at London Fashion Week for emerging designers,” she adds.
It’s this experience that made Zoey more aware of the pitfalls of fast fashion. “I spent my youth as a total fast-fashion fangirl! But I can pin-point the key moments that made me question the industry. A designer I worked with used child labour as they felt that small fingers were better for intricate needlework – It appalled me. Also, the relentless fashion cycles on the high street, sometimes lasting just a few weeks, began to feel exhausting.” Zoey continues, “A wise person once told me to completely ignore trends – if you’re never in fashion, you can never be out of it.”
Fashion’s former fangirl has made a 180 degree turn. She now lives a more fulfilling and altogether sustainable life; choosing to spend money only on secondhand clothing. “I love the thrill of the chase when it comes to shopping secondhand. Walking into a charity shop is pure pleasure and it’s guilt-free because my money goes to a good cause whilst saving those clothes from going to landfill.”
It’s a lifestyle that the author has embraced with all her might. Once she stopped buying new clothes Zoey found herself looking for ways to re-vamp her existing wardrobe. She found an entire community of vintage enthusiasts online who were not only buying secondhand but were taking vintage fashion to the extreme.
“It was fascinating, I started going to vintage events and chatting to the most interesting looking people about their passions. It was an education. I had already been shopping secondhand for around four years but these guys were taking it to the next level. They were making garments from scratch following vintage patterns or seriously customising items with original fabric swatches or trimmings they’d hunted down.”
Her enchantment with the vintage world led her to write a book about the people in it. Those who made it into the book were scattered across the globe, from LA to Sicily, Palm Springs to Sheffield. Tying the visits in with existing work commitments in the area, to limit her carbon footprint, Zoey turned up with a notebook and camera. She photographed them in their own spaces to have a real insight into this newly discovered world.
Her book Vintage Style: Inside the Dapper World of Retro Enthusiasts is a good old gander into the slightly obsessive devotion that the vintage experts have. They’d chosen an era they loved and gone all-in. The interests went beyond clothing and spilled over to their homes and lifestyles. Living more sustainably was most certainly a consideration for many but individuality was the driving force behind their choices.
“I’d step into someone’s home and it would be like walking into a time capsule influencing the music they listened to, films they watched, the decor in their homes and even their friendship groups. I realised that I had only dipped my toes into vintage style. These guys had jumped in head first”.
The book is a filled with stylish photographs of retro enthusiasts and their homes. From a Japanese lolita living in London to rock and rollers in Memphis and styles from 17th century gothic to colourful Polynesian tiki it’s a kaleidoscopic look back. The people who make up this dapper world range from all ages, backgrounds and races united by their love of all things vintage. The design of the book itself, with a foreword from none other than Wayne Hemingway of Red or Dead, makes for a snazzy visual addition to a coffee table. With gifting season around the corner it might well be one for the Christmas (yes, I said it) list.
As a last word Zoey hopes that her book will inspire us to live more consciously. “I hope people who read it will appreciate how much fun it can be to breathe new life into old clothes.”
Vintage Style: The Dapper World of Retro Enthusiasts by Zoey Goto is available to buy on Amazon.
