Date of Award

6-1-2010

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences

First Advisor

Daniel Lair, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Kate Willink

Third Advisor

Christina Foust

Fourth Advisor

Ann Dobyns

Keywords

Fashion, Liquid modernity, Meaning, Resistance, Rhetoric, Secondhand shopping

Abstract

This study takes a critical look at consumption in liquid modernity as it plays out in secondhand shops. Interviews with secondhand shop owners and shoppers demonstrate that secondhand fashion has the potential to promote individuality and foster relationships, ultimately encouraging a reflexive approach to consumption. It also becomes clear that secondhand shoppers are more concerned with how they consume than what they consume. Secondhand shoppers situate how they approach consuming as a facet of their identity that qualifies them as expert shoppers. In addition, shoppers are aware that how they use secondhand fashion is an opportunity for individuality. Shop owners encourage the reflexivity and individuality they see in their shoppers by the environment they create in their shop, ultimately assigning new meaning to the fashions in their shop. This study argues that secondhand fashion is a resistant practice of consumption in liquid modern times, but also teases out the ways in which secondhand shopping is embedded in liquid modernity.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Keeley M. Buehler

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

139 p.

Discipline

Communication

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