The evolution of vintage clothing never ceases to amaze me. This story by ADA CALHOUN explores the vintage clothing scene in NYC's EAST VILLAGE through memories and first-hand accounts from store owners and others who lived it. It's a great picture of a cultural moment—one that's continually reinvented in band tees, military surplus, selvedge denim, and ballgowns. The stigma surrounding secondhand clothing has all but faded into a distant past. New clothes might be given a vintage look, with manufacturing innovations made to laser-distress your jeans or pummel them inside an industrial rock tumbler. Old clothes might fare better after decades than new ones after mere months. Leasing, trading, and consigning are hyped retail concepts today—the fact that someone else wore the clothes before you has become a founding principle for many businesses. So wearing secondhand clothing isn't the act of radicalism it once was—kids must find other things sure to enrage their parents in 2017. Yet the visible wear-and-tear on clothing holds different meanings. For vintage enthusiasts, fade patterns on denim or frayed cuffs on a military jacket may be prized markers of a garment that's been worn down over time—the memories are someone else's, the marks unique. I'm reminded of the chapter "Marx's Coat," by PETER STALLYBRASS, which is a wonderful look at the meaning of clothing in the personal life and work of KARL MARX. It's much less about the controversial aspects of Marx's work and much more a view of clothing's connection to a sense of self. And it's a compassionate view of Marx's (and many nineteenth-century European families') constant need to pawn clothing in order to make ends meet. Stallybrass wrote that in the pawn shop, the objects are stripped of their memories in order to become a commodity. Yet some would return again and again to retrieve the same coat or dress. People will always have an attachment to clothing—it's fun to see what they hang on to, and what gets discovered... Briefs: A '90s platform sneaker brand revival... Locker room looks: the dopp kit as NBA fashion... When burning fast fashion is a coal alternative.