Have Yourself A Very Vintage Christmas
From Christmas Stocking Fillers To Land Fillers
Before the biggest consumer festival of the year gets into full swing, let's take a moment to consider the longer-term impact of the gifts we choose this Christmas. Here we show you how to have a very vintage Christmas to feel good about the gifts you give.
There's so much temptation out there to buy inexpensive throw-away stocking fillers to show our friends and family how much we appreciate them. We may be piling high with bargains but what is the true cost to our planet? A recent survey* found that Brits receive an average of two unwanted gifts each Christmas, equating to a total of 119,584,080 presents to miss the mark across the UK this year. Around 22,720,975 of these will be sent to landfills, contributing significantly to the additional waste created by the festive period.
*UK Gift Card and Voucher Association (UKGCVA).
The fact we cram three bin bags of gift wrap into the recycling bin rather than general waste is no longer enough. For many, the Covid pandemic has provided an opportunity to reflect on our lives, examine our spending habits and question whether we could be doing more to live in a more sustainable way. At the very least we can execute our Christmas shopping in a more considered way.
Vintage The Gift That Keeps On Giving
A second-hand gift isn’t for everyone. I am lucky my family have never minded. They love something ‘like new’ that I have spotted over the year, instantly thought of them and squirrelled away until the right moment. Presents as unique as the people I’m giving them to, accompanied with a personal anecdote of how I came across it and why it made me think of them.
Make a thoughtful gesture with true vintage apparel if you want to feel as great as the person you are giving them to. It's generally safer to opt for things that go across a few sizes such as a vintage sweater, tank top or cardigan. Accessories are even less likely to miss the mark as they don’t need to fit at all, see our ideas below. Consider combining a couple of smaller gifts such as a cardigan with a brooch or vintage purse with a complimentary scarf to show real care has gone into your gift. Revival allows anything bought on or after 15th November to be returned up to 14th January to take into account Christmas present returns.
Vintage Christmas Gift Ideas For Men
Of course, others may be insulted a little with a second-hand gift but that’s where vintage-inspired or classic reproductions and our carefully-observed replicas come in.
Vintage Christmas Gift Ideas For Women
Gift Vouchers
Revival gift vouchers, available on our homepage in a range of denominations, take out all the guesswork. How many times do people think they know exactly what you like, claiming something is 'very you' while you secretly cringe inside. Or pretend you like something like fudge once to be polite to go on to receive it at every subsequent birthday. Told my Grandma I wanted a frilly Adam Ant style shirt in the 1980s and she found me 10 in and around the charity shops in her area - bless. Soon went off them!
New Year New Attitude
There are now sales every month of the year, you know the type, always ending this Sunday, until the next even better sale starts on Monday. However many of us still have the mentality of spending our Christmas money in January when the sale season historically begins.
I think online shopping can lead to more mistake purchases and even more fashion faux pas that we convince ourselves we will slim down to, find something to go with, wear around the house, might come in handy if we go to a Rocky Horror show this year.
An average consumer throws away 70 pounds (31.75 kilograms) of clothing per year. Globally we produce 13 million tons of textile waste each year 95% of which could be reused or recycled.
Moreover, when we bin unwanted clothing not only does it waste money and resources, but it can take 200+ years for the materials to decompose in a landfill. During the rotting process, textiles generate greenhouse methane gas and leak toxic dyes and chemicals into the groundwater and our soil.
Returning goods creates less waste for us personally but it means the item is back on the road, put back in the system, re-processed before it goes out again on yet another journey.
Embrace Your Individuality
Instead of falling victim to fashion trends and opting for the latest shiny new 'must have'. We know deep down the latest neckline, or purple promoted as the new green isn't necessarily going to be right for us. We follow fashion for fear of looking old fashioned so why follow it at all. Trends pass but style is always en vogue. It boils down to how we wear things.
Even if we are buying reproduction from a vintage company you are not entering into the perpetual cycle of fast fashion. Because retro fashion is based on timeless styles from past eras it doesn't date in the same way, and tends to be better quality so it lasts better anyway. Choosing quality over quantity and knowing what suits us and what we feel good in is always en vogue.
Revival Vintage has sold preloved clothing for twenty years. As we have grown our range of vintage-inspired lines our emphasis has been on classic garments that buck the trend of fast fashion by promoting timeless classic styles. Making more considered choices when we shop shouldn't take out the fun - there really is room for both and we shouldn't need protestors glueing themselves to our roads to tell us that.
Enjoy The Festive Season Helene X