Clothes with a story to tell are object lesson in nostalgia

Back in my student days my most treasured item of clothing was a dark brown sheepskin jacket.

It was a hand-me-down from my dad who had long since stopped wearing it given the fact he’d bought it in 1970.

I, on the other hand, loved it. Not not only was it a godsend in the depths of winter (it was almost as tall as me and probably weighed half as much), it was also a vintage piece of clothing from a time when things were still made to last, as opposed to today’s disposable society.

This idea that clothes and furniture were designed for longevity as well as style is something Dr Samantha Holland, a senior research fellow at Leeds Beckett University, muses upon in her book Modern Vintage Homes & Leisure Lives: Ghosts & Glamour.

It examines the reasons behind the growing number of vintage fans and looks at how the very notion of ‘vintage’ has almost become a brand in its own right. “The vintage market has become much less niche compared to what it once was and I wanted to find out why,” she says.

Dr Holland was intrigued why some people were fascinated with a particular era or decade and spoke to vintage fans not only from this country but as far away as the United States, Greece, Finland and Italy.

She says those she met, or spoke to, were often motivated by a sense of nostalgia and the ‘ghosts’ and stories behind vintage items.

“I had not entirely anticipated how emotional the study would become, for me as well as for the participants.

“They appreciated items more when those items had provenance, that is, when they could find out the ‘story’ about previous owners or where something had come from.”

She says people are drawn to things with a bit of heritage for different reasons. “For some people it’s about creating a connection with the past and quite often it’s tied to personal memories. There was someone who had baubles from the 1950s for her Christmas tree which she’d kept because her grandmother once had them.”

Dr Holland believes that most people tend to either like vintage items or they don’t, there’s no halfway house.

“Some people really don’t like the idea of wearing something that used to belong to somebody else, but other people like the fact that someone once wore a jacket because it gives it added emotional value.”

She says whether it’s clothes and furniture, or TVs and mobile phones, we don’t expect things to last now. “We don’t have time to appreciate our possessions and to enjoy them in the way people once did because so many end up in landfill sites. We don’t get the same emotional attachment to things that we did in the past.”

Dr Holland believes the growing fascination with vintage belongings, particularly from the 1940s and 50s, is partly a reaction to this. Another factor is the simple fact that it’s become much easier to buy and sell things online and track down rare items. “The rise we’re seeing now is in tandem with the rise of the internet.”

But this growth in popularity has come at a price. “People who’ve been collectors for a long time have really noticed these price rises. Things you used to be able to pick up in a charity shop for £1 might cost £50 or even more.”

There has long been a fascination with second hand objects that taps into our tendency to look back through rose-tinted glasses.

“Today everything is constantly being upgraded and it can feel safer looking backwards than it can looking to the future. Things were made to last, they had an emotional durability and that’s what a lot of people want.”

Modern Vintage Homes & Leisure Lives: Ghosts & Glamour, published by Palgrave Macmillan, is out now.