In previous research, it has been confirmed that China is in a different place to the UK in relationship to attitudes to clothing, and buying new and second-hand clothing, Quantitatively, my own street interviews among Chinese students suggest that 71% of students choose to ditch away their used clothes instead of donating them. In the meantime, in a survey conducted among British people in 2019, researchers found that 42% of people in the country had over half of their wardrobe made up of second-hand items (Smith, 2022).
Quantitatively, in terms of the reason for this different relationship to attitudes to clothing, for British people, secondhand clothes not only help them reduce costs spent on money but also answer to their increasing concerns about environmental issues (Hur, 2022). In the meantime, in the UK, due to historical periods like two World Wars, where used clothes were collected to help the country survive hardship, secondhand clothes in the UK were seen as symbol of perseverance in difficulty times as well as efforts of community participation to make the country better (Maude Bass-Krueger, 2020). In comparison, in China, economic or environmental protection motivations are not priorities for young people to buy fashion products; their most important consideration is treasure-hunting fun (Wang et al., 2022). Also in China, wearing secondhand clothes means a person is wearing clothes of poor quality and a sign of lower socioeconomic status (Xue et al., 2014).
In view of what has been presented, the lessons can be learned from the UK’s success and mistakes are as the following. Firstly, it is evident that people in the UK are more supportive of secondhand clothes because they do not associate negative meanings such as poor economic conditions but positive meanings such as perseverance and community participation to secondhand clothes. From this perspective, it is important to raise Chinese people’s awareness of secondhand clothes’ positive meanings. For example, in my project, the clothes are mostly brand new, many of which have been used only once or twice. Therefore, it is important that I highlight wearing these secondhand clothes has nothing to do with a person being needy or poor. Secondly, as mentioned above, environmental concerns are also an important contribute to the factors of secondhand clothes’ popularity in the UK. From this perspective, it is also important for my intervention to highlight how the fashion industry is polluting the environment and possible negative effects on the young people.
In the meantime, despite the success in UK, there is still room for further improvement. For example, according to Smith (2022), while 42% British people had over half of their wardrobe made up of second-hand items, 58% of them did not have the same condition. Therefore, even the UK can further increase people’s awareness of secondhand clothes to further appeal the remaining 58%. In terms of how to do so, working with key opinion leaders on social media may be an effective choice, as Ferrao and Alturas (2018) found that in the fashion industry today, key opinion leaders on social media can impact customer fashion decision making and change their perspectives to a large extent.
References
Ferrao, A. M., & Alturas, B. (2018). The online purchasing decision process and consumer loyalty of fashion industry products: Influence of social media and “opinion makers.” 2018 13th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.23919/CISTI.2018.8399396
Maude Bass-Krueger, H. E.-D. (2021). Fashion, Society and the First World War : International Perspectives. Bloomsbury Academic.
Smith, P. (2022). Estimation of the proportion of consumers’ wardrobe acquired second-hand or vintage in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2019. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1135244/proportion-of-wardrobe-second-hand-in-the-uk/
Wang, B., Fu, Y., & Li, Y. (2022). Young consumers’ motivations and barriers to the purchase of second-hand clothes: An empirical study of China. Waste Management (Elmsford), 143, 157–167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2022.02.019
Xue, Y., Chen, Y., Burman, R., & Zhao, H. (2014). Second‐hand clothing consumption: a cross‐cultural comparison between American and Chinese young consumers. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 38(6), 670–677. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijcs.12139