1. Was Wearing Other People's Clothes Always Normal?
For a long time, yes. In medieval Europe, people unpicked worn garments and reused the cloth, sometimes turning it so the less worn side faced out. By the 1600s, big cities had busy markets for used clothing. [1]
Take London in the 1660s. Samuel Pepys, a government official who kept a famous diary, regularly had old clothes remade to follow the latest style, and he happily accepted clothing handed down by wealthier friends. [1] Meanwhile, dealers in secondhand clothes were moving huge amounts of stock, including ready-made outfits for sailors who spent months at sea. [1] In Venice, a guild of used-clothes dealers was tightly regulated, in part because people feared that used cloth could spread disease during plague outbreaks. [1]
By the 1700s, one scholar of Edinburgh found that wearing pre-worn clothing was something nearly every social class had experienced. Used clothes gave richer people fashionable outfits, and they were also an essential source of basic clothing for the poor. [1] So for centuries, "secondhand" meant a normal way to get dressed, not a statement.
2. What Pushed Secondhand Clothes Out of Everyday Life?
Cheaper new clothes did. During the 1800s, cotton and wool cloth got cheaper, and so did ready-to-wear garments, which sharply reduced the appeal of used clothing in the home markets of Europe and North America. As a result, exports of used clothing, especially to Africa, grew into a major part of the trade. [1] Charity shops and rummage sales then became a main route for used clothing in the 1900s. [1]
That left a puzzle. If new clothes were cheap and used clothes had a "second best" reputation, why would anyone pay extra for something old?
3. When Did People Start Choosing Old Clothes on Purpose?
The encyclopedia entry on secondhand clothing points to the 1970s. Fashion writers have noted that, from then on, there was a wider mix of styles instead of a single look dictated by fashion houses. In that setting, secondhand clothing came to be seen as a way to show a more individual, independent style. [1] By the early 2000s, fashion borrowed heavily from early-20th-century and post-war looks, and used clothing sold as "vintage" gained cultural and economic value, showing up in dedicated sections of urban fashion stores, in designer collections and on auction websites. [1]
The reason people wore these clothes had changed. Earlier, it was "I can't afford new." Now it could be "I want something nobody else has." One consumer guide sums up the modern difference: "secondhand" can mean anything that has had a previous owner, even last season's top, while "vintage" usually means a garment at least 20 years old that reflects its era's style and craftsmanship. That 20-year line is a common rule of thumb in the trade, not an official definition. [4]
4. Why Did Old Levi's Jeans Become the Classic Collector's Item?
Blue jeans are the best-known example. Levi Strauss & Co. and the tailor Jacob Davis received a US patent on riveted work pants in 1873, which the company counts as the first blue jeans. [2] Over the next century, the company made dozens of small, dateable changes to its 501 model, and those changes are what collectors read like a timeline.
According to the company's own history, by the 1980s "vintage clothing collectors were hot for Levi's." Collectors even traveled from as far away as Japan to the American West to look for old pairs, and the older the denim, the better. [2] (Japan has a long-running appetite for American used denim. The encyclopedia entry also notes that Japan imports a considerable share of the world's trade in used designer denim and sneakers. [1]) That is a company telling its own story, so it is best read as one side of the picture, but it matches the broader pattern: once buyers wanted old denim, they needed a way to tell which old pairs were the interesting ones.
5. How Can One Capital Letter on a Levi's Tag Date a Pair of Jeans?
The tag is a small red fabric label sewn into the back pocket seam, called the Red Tab. It first appeared on September 1, 1936, and the company says it had a practical reason: copies of its riveted denim had flooded the market after the original patent expired in 1890, and sales managers had trouble telling Levi's from the competition when looking at people from a distance. [2]
The word on the tab was originally spelled all in capitals, "LEVI'S." In 1971, it became "Levi's," with only the first letter capitalized. [2] Because the "E" is the letter that visibly changed, collectors call the older tab "Big E" and the newer one "small e." According to Levi Strauss & Co., the change followed a 1967 logo redesign by a design firm, which advised that the name inside the logo should be written in upper and lower case because it is a person's name, the founder's. [2] So a decision about typography on a logo ended up as the line between "genuinely vintage" and "not quite" in a collector's mind. The company states that collectors agreed that only jeans with the Big E tab were true vintage, and that this is now the accepted measure for the brand. [2]
The company's dating guide adds a twist: in 2018 the Big E tab was brought back on premium products. Telling a 1960s pair from a 2018 pair means checking the inside tags, because care labels like those on current garments would not have been on pre-1971 products. [2]
6. Do Collectors Trust the Tag Alone?
Not by itself. The company's guide mentions that the tab was sometimes cut off by early discount shops and by people in the 1930s and 1940s who removed labels. [2] Collectors therefore check other clues too. One is the selvedge, the self-finished edge of the denim. In 1927 the fabric maker Cone Mills began weaving denim exclusively for Levi's 501 jeans with a single red thread inside the white selvedge edge. Around 1984, Cone Mills switched to a wider, cheaper loom, and standard jeans no longer had the selvedge line. It was later brought back for premium jeans and reproductions. [3]
Notice what is happening here. A reproduction can copy a look, so every single clue can be imitated. What gives a pair of old jeans its story is that several details from the same period line up, such as the tab, the edge and the inside labels. That is why dating is treated as a skill, and why some old garments can be worth far more than others of the same age. How much more depends on the buyer and the market, and prices rise and fall with fashion, so this article does not give a figure.
7. How Can You Look for Clues in Your Own Closet?
You don't need rare jeans. Look inside a few clothes you own, including something from a relative or a secondhand shop, and find the care label. Check what it lists: fibers, washing instructions, where it was made. Compare an older garment with a newer one. Do the labels use the same style of writing? Can you guess which one is older, and what clue you used?
Then see how far a single clue can take you. Once a detail like the "E" is known, it is quick to check. The harder part is knowing how reliable the clue is, which is why the sources below are worth a look.