something is happening

This week I was especially inspired by McLuhan's take on the relationship between the new and old.

He said

"We impose the form of the old on the content of the new"

(86)

And I spent a lot of time thinking about this and how it applies to my life and in things that I come in contact with everyday. Because, ya know, innovation is hard. Like, really hard, and I think that we are surrounded with new ideas presented to us in these old forms constantly.

And then I began to think about clothes, and how we are continuously recycling past trends in the present day forms, a 180 from McLuhan's theory.

My question to myself was how I support that. Where am I getting my trends and buying my clothes and I got stuck on the idea of a  thrift store...

Thrift stores have become increasingly popular in our present society as we shift towards eco-conscious ways of consuming fashion. The thrift store is up cycling the products of the old to new audiences, but do we consider the thrift store a form of the past or present? With apps like Poshmark, Depop, Threadup, and countless others, I have begun to see the thrift store as something of the future. Though it is an establishment that has existed for decades, it is now becoming the new fad. Second-hand clothes and other items used to be something I was looked down upon for because it meant that I didn't have the newest Aeropostle hoodie or some stupid shit like that. Now, our generation has turned that around. I am constantly using my new Goodwill find as bragging rights, in hopes of boosting my cool factor, and I think lots of people do the same. 

Reflecting on my wardrobe in its present state, I can confidently say that about 40% of it is sourced from The Fox Valley Thrift Shoppe. And I wanted to see what I could do with that.

But when I started taking pictures, I became much more interested in the weird things that the store had. Whether it was an entire mound of naked dolls in plastic bags or problematic representations of foreign cultures. Because as much as thrift stores are debatably a new, popular form, they still hold the content of the past. As I explored, I could not get over how everything was on display in an almost novel way. I felt like I was supposed to be looking at it as if it was an object of interest, like it was meant to be inspected. So that is what I captured. The things that caught me eye. My hope for this set of pictures is that it evokes what it feels like to be in that space. All of the weird plastic toys, the seemingly endless line of beige cargo shorts, and the overall yellow tone of the awful fluorescent lighting.

Please don't be creeped out by all the dolls.