Feature: Cheap but chic second-hand clothing now a hit among Vietnamese women
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E-mail Xinhua, June 7, 2013
A young woman employee parked her moss-green imported scooter outside an old garment stall in Vo Market, Ha Dong District of this city as she joined other women to rummage for second-hand clothes.
"This still seems new and looks pretty unique. It's very elegant," said the young woman, going by her last name Anh, an employee of national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines.
Ms. Anh was holding a black dress made in South Korea that she eventually bought for 200,000 Vietnamese dongs (around 10 U.S. dollars).
"In the past, we sold only old clothes, and our main customers were students with light purses. Over the past few years, more and more high-income earners, mainly office workers, have come here to buy not only second-hand garments but other accessories like footwear, belts, wallets, handbags and even cuddly toys," stall owner Nguyen Thi Nga said.
According to Anh, with her well-paying job plus the income of her husband as director of a construction firm, she could well afford to buy well-known and branded clothes, but she chose second- hand imported dresses because of their unique style and design.
"New dresses or jackets are well made but they're everywhere. Vintage or second-hand clothes are pretty much the same quality but varied in style, and most importantly, they're unique," she said.
Hao, an editor of a state-run newspaper based in Hanoi, told Xinhua reporter that she likes second-hand clothes as they are both stylish and less expensive. "My humble salary doesn't allow me to buy new clothes with well-known brand names. Second-hand clothes are okay with me if they have style and the materials are of good quality. I also buy used clothes for my husband and children," Hao said.
According to Hao, second-hand garments sold in Vietnam usually come from Western countries although there are some from South Korea, Japan and China.
"This year, I sometimes see more garments with the tag 'Made in China' in some stalls but I don't really know their origin. Maybe they were worn by Westerners who decided to sell them," she said.
All the year round, people like Hao and Anh go to secondhand shops which are mainly located in the Hang Da and Vo markets, the Kim Lien area in Hanoi, Luong Khanh Thien and Cat Dai streets in north Vietnam city Hai Phong, and the Tan Dinh Market and Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street in Ho Chi Minh City in the south.
According to some shop owners, lots of their second-hand items were originally sent to Cambodia as aid but eventually found their way to the stalls in Vietnam.
"As far as I know, in the late 80s and early 90s, the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) collected secondhand clothes abroad as part of their aid work. That's why they became known as 'hang sida' (SIDA goods). Now, they call them 'hang thung ' (barrel goods), because they are packed in wooden barrels and transported by seagoing vessels," Nga said.
Some local people used to think that SIDA clothes came from dead AIDS patients as the word SIDA is the French name for AIDS and used in Vietnam for years before being called AIDS.
Quang, a member of the staff of Ho Chi Minh City University, said that at first, thinking that second-hand clothes collected by SIDA came from AIDS patients, she did not buy such clothes.
But after seeing other people buying and wearing them and when she was told that there was no truth to the rumor about AIDS, she started buying second-hand clothes to save on money.
"TV programs say that using old things is a way to save money and the environment. TV reports feature the Japanese concept ' mottainai'," Anh said.
"Mottainai" means a sense of regret concerning waste when the intrinsic value of an object or resource is not properly utilized, equivalent to the English phrase "reduce, reuse, recycle."
Anh noted that buyers of second-hand clothes sometimes encounter a pleasant surprise. "After buying a made-in-Korea blouse for my little daughter, I found a 1,000-won Korean banknote in one of its pockets and a letter in the other. The letter, written in Korean, says 'I wish that whoever wears my blouse makes a lot of friends and finds happiness'," Anh said. Endi
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