By Chinazam Ikechi-Uko.
The art of thrift shopping hit the Western world harder in the late 2010s than Beanie Babies did in the 1990s. But secondhand clothes have always been a staple in Nigeria, so how do you get people obsessed with something that is seen as normal? Well, you rebrand it, and now, every thrift store refers to itself as vintage.
December gave the fashion industry a satisfying last hurrah. IJGBs—an acronym for “I Just Got Back,” which refers to the homecoming of Nigerians in the diaspora—filled the streets of Lagos and Abuja. More people meant more shopping, and fashion brands capitalised on this, which is evident in the number of fashion sale events held in the twelfth month.
These events ranged from renowned brands like Kadiju and Kilentar having end-of-the-year sales to celebrity closet sales like Jbottoms By Jal X Ashley Okoli and Tems X WARIF. Every day in December was a viable commodity for fashion brands and thrift stores understood that.
The sole advantage of online thrift stores in Nigeria is they eliminate the search process. Markets like Yaba and Balogun are extensive and time-consuming but on Instagram, one could simply scroll and swipe. But hosting a thrift event feels redundant because once again, you will find yourself in a similar rigorous hunting process. However, this is where social conditioning steps.
HOW THE OBSESSION WITH THE OLD BECAME THE NEW TREND:
Social media has played a huge part in the way society interacts with fashion. In 2023, fashion journalist, Alexandra Hildreth said in a conversation with Vogue Business, “You can tell someone’s screen time from their outfit.” This very sentence sparked the fashion trend of 2024– the obsession with something old and something new under the guise of ‘personal style’. It was regurgitated in several videos, of course, none credited Hildreth, nor read the article because every video proved its point— how Algorithms shape modern style.
Now, everyone is on a deep exploration to find their personal style, an authenticity war, if you must. Videos like “How do I find my personal style” started blowing up on the internet. ‘Style’ became a Herculean task that one must conquer. It became less emotional and less about What I Like but was replaced with how ‘unique’ and ‘cultured’ I can appear to be. Nothing says ‘I am cultured’ like history.
Hence, every red carpet of 2024 had a celebrity referencing a fashion icon from a previous decade; for example, Tyla at the EMAs wearing a Roberto Cavalli previously won by Eve and Aaliyah.
This vintage obsession entered the Nigerian market, mainly via thrift stores because they were the go-to shops for the previous Y2K trend. Thrift stores successfully update their catalogue to fit what is trending but ‘vintage’ is more complex than that.
WHAT IS VINTAGE:
In fashion, there are colloquial terms that describe the age of clothes within stores that cater to niche audiences. Retro, vintage, antique, and archival are examples but lately, they’ve been used interchangeably and this makes it impossible for the shoppers to know what to expect.
Retro, short for retrospective, refers to clothing that imitates the style of a previous era. Vintage is a term for products that fall between the ages of 20 and 100. If it is younger than 20, it is not vintage and if it is older than 100, it is antique.
Most thrift stores do not know the history of the garments in their catalogues. More importantly, they have no way to decipher what era an outfit was made in; these assumptions can be made based on the stitching, textile condition, and copyright year.
The art of determining a garment’s age is a taught skill, one that most thrift stores do not know exists. At one of the many vintage pop-ups in December, a store owner was perplexed when asked, “How do you know it is old?” To which she responded, “Well, it is secondhand.” That makes it thrift, not vintage.
However, she was a microcosm of the problem because the exact issue arose at every ‘vintage’ event.
INTO THE VINTAGE POP-UPS OF LAGOS:
Lagos stood still on the 21st of December. At every corner, there was an event; Nativeland at Sol Beach, The Fola Francis Ball, and an annual vintage pop-up in Ikoyi.
It is easy to develop patience in a city synonymous with traffic. But there is a different adjective required for arriving at a vintage pop-up and seeing a green Mowalola bag and a Kai Collective dress. Both pieces are instantly recognisable; the Gaia dress (Kai Collective) was inescapable in 2020 and the Mowalola signature bag has its own Bratz doll version.
These brands have a few things in common; they are largely operated from England, their founders are Nigerian, and they were founded in the late 2010s. Therefore, neither of these pieces is ‘old’. Iconic? Yes. But why are they at a vintage event?
When asked these questions, Jane* —who played the event’s accountant— explained that The clothes were no longer in stock and these were pre-owned versions. The vintage is just the name of the event. We sell thrift.
The self-awareness expressed by Jane raises another discussion. Sure, it is not vintage and that is just a titular gimmick. But these are archival pieces and that is another term missing from the Nigerian lexicon.
Related: 8 DESIGNERS FROM GTCO THAT OUGHT TO BE ON YOUR HIT LIST.
ARCHIVAL VS VINTAGE:
“Archival” refers to anything related to an archive, which is a repository that stores and preserves historical documents, records, and materials. If an item is off the market and has been retired, the term applies to it, regardless of the year it was produced and distributed.
The Gaia dress and green Mowalola are archival pieces, neither are still sold by the companies. Another noteworthy event was the My Nigerian Closet Sale at Gather House, Ikoyi.
In 2024, Chimamaka Ali founded My Nigerian Closet to provide Nigerian fashion lovers with vintage, archival, and pre-loved pieces. Ali got inspired while living in Paris and vintage shopping, she wanted to create a similar experience in Nigeria.
Out of over 10 vintage events attended, Ali’s was the only one with transparent marketing. The misuse of a term is typical of the Nigerian shopping experience. A few years ago, the industry’s buzzword was ‘luxury’.
LET’S BAN THE WORD LUXURY IN NIGERIA:
While thrift brands are gaining notoriety for self-proclaiming items as vintage. Their design counterparts— non-thrift clothing— have the internet in arms with their love of the word ‘luxury’. This ‘luxury’ mania has infected several industries like architecture, restaurant, and alcohol.
During the Detty December season, pictures of restaurant bills surfaced on X (formerly known as Twitter). This included the Burna Boy and Gunna bill from The Glass House, Lagos. The bill was over 40 million naira ~ $26,000. This sent internet users down a frenzy, what place in Lagos serves food of that quality calibre. An answer that was never given because the rhetoric was it is not mama put– a colloquial term for street food—, it is luxury.
A similar push back is given whenever concerns of quality in relation to pricing are brought up in fashion. In May of 2024, an X user questioned the prices of Wande Esan’s tank tops. The sole rebuttal of those in favor of the price point was “You are not the target audience. It is Wande Esan.”
None discussed the quality or took the opportunity to defend the brand’s production. Since then, the brand’s founder, Yewande Esan has cleared the air on her production. In an interview with More Branches, Esan said, “Those pictures do not define our quality. Those pictures were bad and anyone who has ever bought a Wandé Esan piece can attest that we make quality outfits. However, those were samples, manufactured samples used to create mock-ups.”
Wandé Esan never defined itself as luxury or vintage instead timeless— another beloved word.
Timeless, luxury, and vintage are words often weightless in Nigeria. The pervasive use of the term ‘vintage’ in Nigeria reveals a complex interplay between marketing strategies, social conditioning, and cultural perceptions. While thrift stores have capitalized on the allure of nostalgia, many consumers find themselves caught in a web of mislabeling and misunderstanding. As shoppers continue to seek individuality and authenticity in their style, a clearer distinction between thrifted and genuinely vintage pieces is essential.
