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As a teenager in post-USSR Ukraine, I vividly remember visiting secondhand clothes shops. For the elderly, the biggest obstacle to accepting secondhand clothes wasn’t just the lingering smell of naphthalene – a potent chemical with a strong mothball odour used for sanitation which is hard to remove even by washing or dry cleaning.
Assumptions about the previous owner’s class — like the bourgeoisie, the so-called enemy of the working class in Soviet propaganda — and their skin colour were barriers too. But for me, these were exactly the reasons I adored this form of shopping. Through secondhand clothes, my friends and I consumed western culture.
Yet, while proximity to western bodies felt like a blessing to my generation, it’s not universally desirable. Certain types of pre-worn clothing, like lingerie, for example, are rarely found in charity shops. Such items are perceived as “dangerous” for reselling as they are associated with contamination and lack of hygiene due to their close contact with intimate areas of the body.
For customers willing to buy and wear Victorian-era underwear slips, this perceived risk is much lower as the cultural provenance outweighs any association with dirt. Washing such historic items is also not recommended as it could ruin the delicate silk or batiste textile, while the traces of someone else’s body such as marks, frays, creases, wrinkles and folds on clothes are considered marks of authenticity.
Although both pre-loved modern and vintage lingerie have been worn, perceptions of their cleanliness differs radically.
The stigma associated with dirt hinders the way people reuse secondhand garments or choose recycled fabrics that have been woven into something new. This limits the potential to transform the wasteful, polluting and energy-intensive fashion industry into a more sustainable one.
Recycling is not yet happening on an industrial scale. Only 1% of used clothes are recycled, and Europe’s only recycling mill, designed to convert discarded clothes into new textiles through eco-friendly chemical recycling, closed in February 2024 – declaring bankruptcy just two years after opening.
Reuse – such as resale, rental, repair and remaking – could help prevent waste, reduce the use of new resources, lower carbon emission and increase consumer awareness to tackle fashion waste. But despite the rise of various reuse models, it still remains a niche practice because it relies on people wearing clothes that others have previously worn.
Although worn clothes are often called “pre-loved,” the visibility of a former “lover” should be minimal for them to re-enter the new cycle of consumption.
Behind the seams
Cleanliness is a cultural concept that has evolved over time. Before, laundering undergarments served as a substitute for bathing, protecting bodies from germs and disease. Today, laundry practices focus on caring for clothes and protecting them from our dirty bodies. Washing at low temperatures and on gentle cycles isn’t about killing germs but preserving freshness. Freshness has become the primary marker of cleanliness, as shown by the wide range of modern detergents and after-laundry products that promise extra freshness.
Cultural perceptions of cleanliness significantly influence how secondhand clothes are viewed and valued. Today, that’s driven by the need to remove traces of the previous owner. That involves laundering, which can release harmful microplastics – washing polyester contributes more than half a million tonnes of microplastics to the oceans annually – or energy-intensive dry cleaning with toxic solvents like perchloroethylene, a process that’s commonly used by rental clothing businesses.
My preliminary research on upcycling shows that clothes, even when physically clean, are often seen as dirty if they’ve been previously worn. Stains like blood on a dress, sweat marks on an XXXL men’s shirt, or wine spills on branded jeans are perceived and even smell differently, despite cleaning. These concerns go beyond hygiene, involving assumptions and moral judgements about the bodies of previous owners, including their class, body shape, gender and race.
In many cultures, there’s a need for symbolic cleansing from the body of the previous owners that is often overlooked.
Cultural biases extend to fibres, with the industry favouring virgin wool obtained from sheep shearing over recycled wool. That’s a reflection of historical attitudes towards lower-class people who collected discarded wasted and smelly textiles.
The recycling process of shredding discarded wool and weaving it into new fibres was invented in 19th-century Yorkshire. The resulting reclaimed product, known as “shoddy wool”, was considered lower quality not only due to the process, which significantly downgraded the quality of textile but also because it used worn, dirty rags collected by poor, often immigrant, women and children. The growth of wool recycling has been hindered, not by technology but by negative attitudes towards the use of recycled rather than virgin and dirty, rather than clean, fibres.
Cleanliness of secondhand clothes is symbolically charged. By distinguishing between the needs for and expectations of physical and symbolic purity in clothing and discussing them more openly, attitudes and cultural norms may shift. This could help move reuse business models from niche to mainstream and support further sustainable development.
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Tetyana Solovey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
