My view of second-hand clothes changed over the years and when I moved country. I grew up in Italy between the ’70s and the ’80s. Second-hand was definitely associated with second-class, poverty; not being able to afford new stuff was considered a kind of failure. My mum always bought new clothes for my brother and me. Although we had older cousins we very rarely inherited any clothes from them. I suppose my parents’ generation was still too close to WW2 (that some of them ha

“Fashion trends tend to repeat themselves”, said my mom on several occasions over my 24 years on this planet. Every 20-30 years, some trend highly distinguishable for its presence in the last few decades pops up again on the fashion runway and trickles down to the storefronts of Forever 21’s across the country. From high-waists to bell-bottoms, fashion trends seem to fade out just as quickly as they came in. Most of our closets and drawers are filled to the brim with pieces

Wearing secondhand clothing runs in myfamily. Or really, it runs through my family, as hand-me-downs often do. The women in my family are magpies, and we don’t let go of things easily. Sometimes, this tendency manifests in mounting clutter; piles of clothes stacked on chairs waiting to be mended, old pieces of furniture clogging basement corners, standing by for their next purpose. But sometimes, it manifests in magic.Here I was as a little girl, running downstairs to watch