The Concept of Aura of Vintage Clothing in the Frame of Items Biography Theory

Abstract

Vintage clothing research has grown in popularity over the past decade, and the subject itself has become a significant part of the fashion field. The notion of “vintage” has become recognizable in the space of modern media and at the same time is currently experiencing a situation of commodification, since the word has begun to be used in a different context than is currently enshrined in scientific discourse. The vintage clothing item itself is subject to commodification too. The originality of this article is in using the concept of aura to denote the intangible component of genuine vintage clothing, which includes the age of the item, its cultural biography, traces of time, memories and legends associated with it. By incorporating the concept of aura into vintage clothing studies, it is possible to differentiate between originals, replicas, and contemporary “vintage-style” items on both a lexical and semantic level. In this case, examples of the commodification of both vintage clothing and the notion of “vintage” itself can be viewed in terms of the process of aura disintegration.

To integrate the concept of aura into fashion studies, we used the theory of cultural biography of things proposed by Igor Kopytoff. This optics expanded the possibilities for describing the phenomenon of collections and collecting vintage clothing. Since collecting vintage clothing is often not limited to its storage and restoration, but includes acts of demonstrating it on oneself, vintage collections can be studied both as collections of authentic artifacts and as private dressing spaces. The notions of aura and authenticity are important in this case to confirm the status of collectors-users.