The Vintagescape as Embodied and Practiced Space

Vintage is not a new concept. Second-hand markets and the selling and trading of clothing, bric-a-brac and unwanted goods have been a constant presence throughout consumer history. Previous research around this concept has been explored in the CCT literature from flea markets (Belk et al, 1988; Sherry, 1990), to the notion of thrift shopping (Bardhi 2003; Bardhi and Arnould 2003), and alternative spaces of consumption (Belk et al. 1991; Roux and Korchia 2006; McGrath et al. 1993). For CCT researchers, markets are seen as social and cultural constructs, with the marketplace unpacked in terms of the collective efforts to sustain and perform such marketplaces (Arnould and Thompson 2005; Geiger et al. 2012). To contribute to such previous work we theorise the vintagescape as a form of cultural politics in action and movement. Considering vintage as a socially and culturally malleable frame, it is useful to theorise vintage and its associated practices in terms of their potential for movement, that is, enacted strategically by both buyers and sellers to bring forth a marketspace which fuses a mythical idealised past with a fast paced consumer present.