Monday 12 November 2012

nifty thrifty or crowded house

The culture of second-hand and charity shops is a rather bizarre and complicated phenomenon that maybe highlights differences of more moment and circumstance. I fully realize that where ever they’re located, the stores are not there primarily for my benefit and are intended for practicality with the occasional work of art, antique or incredible find and not the other way around (though I’ve been a patron in both regards and hope that I haven’t taken away anything truly wanted or utilitarian from someone who it needs it more than I and instead contributed to the cause).
In the States, however, there seems to be a thrift shop in every community, regardless of size and specializing in all the cast-offs of mass-production, fads and fashion with showrooms that can span decades. In Germany at least, opportunities are fewer and more disperse, saving perhaps the odd tailor and alteration shop that takes consignments, draping some once-worn frock in the show-windows. The difference shows, I think, not that Germans are any more as a whole forward-thinking about their consumption—what’s really needed and what will go unused—and perhaps less so, knowing that there’s comprehensive recycling system in place to haul away all the excess. Aside from the social-hour of flea-markets, there’s also the institution of bulk-trash days (having its own informed sub-culture of scavengers, I’m sure), because above all, there is, I suspect, a premium on living space, which cannot be in most cases secondary to the need to warehouse.
This is the prevalent mindset, despite all the hoarders that one sees on reality television shows—interventions against people who weathered the Nachkriegszeit of deprivation and uncertainty and developed a sort of disposophobia, called pejoratively “Messys” that pathologically refuse to throw anything away. There are some fine and fun second-hand stores with a serendipitous rolling-stock to be found, but one can only give a good home to a limited amount of vases and souvenirs and knickknacks before risking the whole enterprise.