From underboob dresses to midlife knitwear: the secret psychology of our Vinted wishlists
What begins as a harmless scroll through secondhand rails quickly turns into a window on our anxieties, ambitions and alter egos
This week’s newsletter idea stemmed from where all good ideas stem from – procrastinating while on a deadline. All it took was for one person to reveal what was on their Vinted Favourites list and suddenly everyone was whipping out phones to compare.
The Lithuanian resale platform launched in the UK just over 10 years ago, but really revved up during 2021 when many of us ran out of excuses to avoid clearing out our wardrobes. Today, “it’s from Vinted” has become a humblebrag indicating you are the type of person who can track down a great deal and don’t buy new from mass retailers.
But it turns out your own “Favourites items” section is the real signifier. From midlife crises to fantasising about being someone else, below seven writers reveal what’s really going on as they tap the heart icon.
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‘Trousers that have languished in Vinted purgatory’
There are some items that symbolise the gap between the person you want to be and the person you actually are. For me, that item is the leather trouser. Long the reserve of motorcyclists or try-hards (the Guardian in 2020: “to buy a pair was to show the world that you were coping very badly with the ageing process”), the trousers started to appear everywhere a few years ago.
I admired the women who wore them; they looked sophisticated, glamorous, as if they had dropped in from an era yet to be touched by athleisure and sweatpants and trainers. I tried on a black pair at a vintage shop, and looked like a child playing biker dress-up.
I didn’t have the heft for black leather, and wanted something less, uh, leathery. I found a cute pink pair on Vinted, which looks like something Barbie would wear if she wanted to indulge her edgy side. And yet as I contemplated the purchase, new doubts emerged. How comfortable would vinyl – stiff, unyielding, sticky – really be? Maybe I’m just a product of our unserious athleisure-led, comfort-first era after all. And so these trousers have languished in Vinted purgatory. That said, I’ve just noticed they’ve been discounted. Maybe I can become the woman I’ve always wanted to be, after all. – Rebecca Liu
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‘I’m never going to buy an underboob dress’
My Vinted Favourites is really just a series of variations on a single theme: a short, skin-tight, polystyrene minidress that fastens in a kind of knot over the nipples, leaving both underboobs entirely exposed. I started lusting after a minidress last summer, after I went to a music festival that triggered what I now know to be an existential crisis. Before I went to this festival I thought I was young. I can hardly bear to type this, but the truth is that before I went to this festival I thought I was cool. Standing in the boiling mud last summer, poked and prodded on all sides by the Von Dutch caps of gen Z influencers, I had a horrible realisation that I was not cool at all. I was past it. I was wearing a straw hat and a calf-length smock that doubled as a sweat rag for my face.
I’m never going to buy this underboob dress. Quite apart from anything else, the knot isn’t strong enough to hold up my 33-year-old breasts. But I can’t stop picturing myself dancing in it, polystyrene glistening in the night. I like to tell myself that my clothes are an expression of my personality, but really, they’re an expression of who I want to be. Currently, I want to be a teenager. And, at the time of writing, I’m in disputes with three separate real-life teenagers, bartering to get £3 off different iterations of The Dress, because it feels good to pretend. – Kitty Drake
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‘A graveyard of items I’m waiting to drop in price’
My attempt to atone for the fast-fashion sins of my teenage years means I now spend an inordinate amount of time scrolling on Vinted. After a couple of years of steady curation, the algorithm is alarmingly well-attuned to my tastes (if you’re still in the nascent stages, it does get better).
My Favourites section, meanwhile, is a sort of digital purgatory: a graveyard of items I’m waiting to drop in price (they never do), pieces I’ve liked purely to nudge the algorithm in a certain direction, and things I fully intend to buy but somehow forget exist the moment I close the app. There are always Miista boots in the mix, stubbornly hovering between £120 and £200, taunting me with their refusal to budge.
And then there is the inevitable wildcard: a slightly outre statement piece from a hipster seller whose taste I admire but whose lifestyle I probably do not possess. Currently it’s a grey-and-yellow checked Diesel asymmetric dress-coat hybrid. It’s the kind of multilayered, cross-pollination of shapes and colours that looks effortlessly chic on someone in east London, but I know would read as more “experimental scarecrow” than cutting edge in the honesty of my bedroom mirror. Still, I probably won’t unfavourite it. – Emma Loffhagen
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‘More than a shirt’
I’m locked in a battle of wills with a navy Engineered Garments overshirt. I saved it on my Vinted Favourites list about six months ago. Every time I open the app it’s there, waiting. Looking back at me and asking, ‘When are you going to grow up and buy me?’
This thing is more than a shirt. It’s a gateway into slightly nicer, better-made inoffensive clothes that grownups wear. It’s the type of shirt I probably should be wearing as a 41-year-old media professional but don’t really want to wear because it’d be like admitting defeat.
I’m not sure who is going to blink first in this deadlock. But the more I think about it, the more that puke-green Stüssy jacket on Depop appeals. I don’t think I’m ready to give up my hypebeast dreams and grow old gracefully just yet. – Lanre Bakare
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‘I’m not a mod’
A few weeks ago I was wandering around Soho and came across Sherry’s, the self-styled ace face of London mod shops. How had I never spotted this emporium of 60s-style clobber and mod subculture before? The clothes are as impressive as the shop’s client list (Weller, Gallagher Jr, Suggs, Oldman), and though I’m not a mod, I love the clean lines, bold designs and swagger of the clothing. It’s at once nostalgic and timeless.
I was immediately drawn to the rail of gorgeous, Italian-inspired Gabicci knitwear in the corner – all vivid colours, large collars with beautifully detailed piping and thick, quality fabrics. But then I saw the price tags – the kind that induce both an eyebrow raise and short, high-pitched whistle.
In that same moment, I thought: I wonder how much these are on Vinted? The answer is: the same items, if “new, unworn, without tags”, are only half or even a third of the price. And that is the beauty of online shopping in general and Vinted in particular – it can make dream purchases of normally unaffordable designer brands a reality.
I’m currently favouriting three Gabiccis. All I need to decide now is whether I can carry off the turquoise knit with snazzy white detailing I’ve got my eye on. It would look fab on the 67-year-old Modfather, but I’m not so sure about this 62-year-old’s belly. – Gavin McOwan
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‘A midlife crisis indicator’
A couple of months ago, I turned 36 and had a painful realisation: for a professional adult woman, my work wardrobe looked strikingly similar to that of a teenage boy doing his paper run – baggy jeans, baggy long sleeves, baggy sweatshirts. It triggered an anxiety in me that’s currently playing out in my Vinted Favourites.
For me, this is all about a fantasy version of myself I’d like to one day bring into fruition: Professional Kate. At first, that meant curating a list of incredibly drab vintage Nicole Farhi and Margaret Howell. But that made me feel sad. So I’ve changed tack. Now I’m leaning into what can probably be best described as things Bridget Jones might wear to the office – pastel cardigans, suede A-line skirts, wine-coloured ballet flats and lilac fitted shirts from the brands my mum once shopped at: Principles, Wallis, Etam and Monsoon.
Time will tell if any of these things actually make their way into my wardrobe. Perhaps they’re a sign I’m moving into a new era of my life and trying to figure out what that looks like. (I’ve lived an extended youth – my life looks pretty similar now to how it did in my early twenties, but that’s starting to change.) Perhaps a midlife crisis indicator. Only Vinted knows. – Kate Lloyd
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‘Big stripes unlock both vulnerability and confidence in me’
I love stripes. I always have done. Big, colourful, horizontal stripes. So much so that I have a core memory of the afternoon before a primary school mufti day when a classmate asked if I’d be wearing something stripey and the entire class started laughing at me. It wasn’t the popular choice of clothing for boys in south London, which was anything sportswear-like or Nike or Adidas branded and graffiti-stained jeans.
This love has followed me through my life, and stripes are still a core motif in my wardrobe – whether they’re on a rugby shirt, tiny baby tee or a big cozy jumper. On my Vinted wishlist is a fluffy black, white and yellow stripey jumper from Marni. Yes it is a cheesy platitude to say that I’m healing my inner child by still venerating stripes, but it is true nonetheless. Big stripes unlock both vulnerability and confidence in me, they’re an assurance that I am the person that I was always meant to become. – Jason Okundaye
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