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This old thing? How UK customers are clamouring for ‘trashed-look’ vintage clothing

Store owners say marks and holes add character to pieces and make them more appealing to discerning buyers

At the 99 Vintage store in the centre of Winchester, curated rails of worn-in Dickies trousers sit alongside paint-splattered band T-shirts and a 1964 track-and-field hoodie with the left cuff ­falling off. And Harry Sims, owner of Hartex, a vintage sportswear shop on London’s South Bank, said: “It is not just a free pass to sell dirty clothes, but for some things it really enhances it. Paul Woodcock, owner of the Really Groovy shop in Wadebridge, Cornwall, buys stock from America, from private individuals or from the wardrobes of people who have died.

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