2 . “Few articles change owners more frequently than clothes. They travel downwards from grade to grade in the social scale with remarkable regularity,” wrote the journalist Adolphe Smith in 1877 as he traced a coat’s journey in the last century: cleaned, repaired and resold repeatedly; cut down into a smaller item; eventually recycled into new fabric. But with the improvement in people’s living standards, that model is mind-boggling in the era of fast fashion. The average British customer buys four items a month. And it is reported that 350,000 tonnes of used but still wearable clothes go to landfills in the UK each year.

Yet the gradual revival of the second-hand trade has gathered pace in the past few years. At fashion website Asos, sales of vintage clothes (古董衫) have risen by 92%. Clothing was once worn out of necessity, and now it is simply a way of life. Busy families sell used items on eBay, teenagers trade on Depop and some fashion people offer designer labels on Vestiaire Collective. Strikingly, it has become big enough business that mainstream retailers (零售商) want a slice of the action.

For some buyers and sellers, the switch to the second-hand is born of financial difficulties. Only a few have become worried about the impact of their shopping habit on the planet. But the shift is only a partial solution. Some people worry that some mainstream brands may “greenwash” — using second-hand goods to improve their image, rather than engaging more seriously with sustainability.

However, the biggest concern may be that people keep buying because they know they can resell goods, still chasing the pleasure of the next purchase but with an eased conscience (愧疚). Boohoo, a powerful fast fashion company, has seen sales and profits rise, despite concerns about environmental problems in its supply chain that led to an investigation last year.

A new Netflix series, Worn Stories, documents the emotional meanings that clothes can have: Each old item is full of memories. Actually, a handbag from a grandmother and a scarf passed on by a father are both valuable for us. A love of style is not a bad or an unimportant thing. But a committed relationship is better than a quick flash. Can we learn to appreciate our own old clothes as well as others’?

3 . The Problem with Online Returns

Online shopping is booming: In 2020, Americans spent $ 813 billion online, a 42% increase over 2019. This year, experts expect that figure to top $ 1 trillion for the first time. But millions of those purchases will eventually get sent back.     1     Here’s what you need to know.

When shoppers can’t physically examine products before purchase, they’re more likely to buy clothes that don’t fit or items that don’t suit their needs. People return on average about 25% of what they buy online, compared with 8% of what they buy in stores. However, many items that get returned never go back on sale.     2     About 5 billion pounds of returned goods went to landfills each year, according to logistics(物流)company Optoro.

    3     When you send a product back, companies already owe you a refund, and it would cost them even more to ship it to a sorting facility and have someone evaluate whether it can be sold again. At this stage, every person that touches that item is adding cost, but the company doesn’t earn any value.

Although it’s unlikely that returned items will be sold as new, some items get sent to discount stores.     4     Other unwanted items might be sent overseas-although many could still go to the garbage eventually.

In some cases, giant companies like Amazon and Target have begun telling customers to just keep their unwanted items rather than send them back. Third-party logistics businesses have also popped up to help clean up the return process. But that’s not enough on its own.     5     If we continue to shop without thinking about the environmental impacts of our decisions, we’ll ultimately have very unsustainable supply chains.

7 . Paisley is a distinctive pattern used to decorate fabrics and make countless clothes lively. This pattern also has a uniquely rich history dating back hundreds of years, spreading across multiple continents.

Paisley's most obvious feature is the large swooshing (涡旋) shapes called boteh. Many experts believe the shape is actually an artistically designed tree, which was a powerful religious symbol in India for thousands of years. Besides, the pattern could also represent flowers, the sun, a phoenix, or even an eagle. The exact meaning is lost to history, even though the pattern lives on.

The pattern eventually made its way to the Western world in the 18th and 19th centuries, when it became the height of fashion for the time. Silk scarves bearing the pattern could be as expensive as a small house. Owing to its popularity, especially in Great Britain, it was quickly duplicated and mass-produced. One of the major manufacturing centers of the pattern was Paisley. Scotland, which is how the pattern got its English name.

In the early 20th century, the popularity of the pattern faded for a time. Eventually, it exploded back onto the fashion scene with the help of a surprising force: rock 'n' roll. It started in the 1960s with the Beatles, who not only wore paisley but used patterns in colorful artwork. Other rock legends like the Rolling Stones, Janice Joplin, and David Bowie kept the trend going well into the 1970s. Paisley was suddenly cool and glamorous again, at least temporarily.

Since then, however, the popularity of the pattern has slowly declined. It still pops up on fashion runways and as a colorful accessory (配饰) for some clothes, but paisley is just one of many elegant patterns. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean it won't make a comeback again.

10 . You may not have noticed it as you shop online, but the experience is changing. Clicking through a navigation bar of a website to find an item has become outdated. A search bar that allows you to look up a specific product is faster. In some cases, chatting with a bot (robot) may be even more efficient.

We have experimented with chatbots for years. Facebook has offered tools for businessmen to make bots that deal with customers. Retailers like Amazon have used chatbots to answer customers' questions, and when the bots can't help, a person can take over. “Now that visiting a physical retail store has largely become impractical in the pandemic, we can expect such conversational technologies to gain popularity.” said Julie Ask, a technology analyst for Forrester Research. “There are already plenty of examples. Recently, I shopped for a pair of shoes at Beckett Simonon, an online fashion brand, and asked an employee via a chat box about the correct shoe size for my feet.” she added.

More companies are also using augmented reality to help people with online shopping, Ms. Ask said. Jins Eyewear, which sells glasses, lets you take a photo of your face to virtually try on glasses before deciding whether to buy them. Snap, the parent company for Snapchat, has teamed up with luxury brands like Gucci and Dior to offer virtual try-ons.

Augmented reality is ready to become especially popular this year because the technology keeps improving. New high-end Apple and Android smartphones include sensors for detecting depth, which makes it easier for augmented reality apps to place objects like virtual furniture in physical spaces.

It is expected to see a wave of new ads that take advantage of the format. This year, advertisers are expected to spend about S2.4 billion on augmented reality advertising, up 71 percent from $1.4 billion last year, according to the research firm eMarketer.