How second$-$hand consumption re$-$enchants and empowers the consumer$$s life

Anne and Philippe first got to know each other in the Paris area in the $1980$s$.$ Now in their forties, they are married with two children aged $12$ and $15.$ Anne works as a management controller for a leading French car manufacturer and Philippe as a telecom engineer.

When they met, they were both comfortably off middle$-$class junior managers. Because of Philippe$$s work, they moved for a short period to the north of France. During that time, they discovered the $$Grande Braderie$$ of Lille, an annual discount market dating back to the fairs of the Middle Ages, which attracts thousands of participants and exhibitors each year from the French$-$ Belgian frontier area. They were astounded and quite won over in the course of a night spent bargain$-$hunting among the $70$ kilometres of streets displaying goods

of every imaginable kind. They also made a point at weekends of visiting the various second$-$hand sales that were advertised as taking place in the villages of the Lille region. Both practical and pleasurable, such occasions provided the opportunity to get to know the area, as well as for picking up decorative household knick$-$knacks, clothes or tools, according to their mood at the time. In this region, second$-$hand sales were such a common occurrence that it seemed quite natural to go there and wander around on the lookout for bargains.

Undoubtedly, the most striking memory Anne has of this period is of acquiring her wedding dress. She didn$$t want to buy it in a traditional shop, where the dresses all seemed the same $$ not necessarily unattractive, but banal. One Sunday they were in a charming village

$10$ kilometres from Lille, when Anne, without having planned on doing so$,$ found herself standing in front of a market stall where, hanging from the sunshade, was an Empire$-$style wedding dress. Intrigued, she stared

at it for a long time, admiring its pure straight lines, embellished by fine lace facing and pearls stitched to the bodice. She was irresistibly attracted to it$,$ but, not daring to imagine she might be married in a dress bought at a flea market, she turned it over and over, disbelievingly. The stall$-$holder offered it to her for the equivalent of $15$ euros, a price that seemed ridiculous, exciting and very appealing, in that the dress appeared to be in perfect condition. What$$s more, to Anne$$s

experienced eye it looked to be her size. After asking Philippe$$s opinion $$ he found the idea rather amusing $$ she finally left with what she would later come to think of as a trophy. Years later, the famous $$flea$-$market wedding dress$$ had become something of a fetish object, to the extent that Anne had recounted $$the legend$$ to her daughters, promising to bequeath it to them when they got married.

The following year, with Philippe$$s training complete, the return to the Paris area left them feeling depressed. They were struck by the absence of second$-$hand markets, something they had not been aware of before they left. They also wondered why such events did

not exist or seemed unknown in Paris. By way of compensation, during their holidays, they would have no hesitation in making a detour of several kilometres to rummage through a second$-$hand store signposted along a country road. Anne always managed to find some pieces of old lace, and Philippe antiquarian books.

When their first daughter was born, friends passed on to them baby clothes they had no further use for. Anne had also retrieved the clothes her mother had saved from her childhood, and which she was happy to see

her daughter wearing.

Then, to their great surprise, two or three years

later a number of second$-$hand markets made their appearance in the Paris area. Anne and Philippe were delighted by this development, and began to believe that the pleasures of their Lille years would again be part of their daily life. At the same time, second$-$hand stores started opening up here and there, and they would often make a tour of them at random. Anne especially liked looking for decorative items for the house, but more than anything, such places were like great caves, full

of treasure. One would never know what one might

find there. They were permeated with an antiquated atmosphere, and Anne loved the untidy profusion of abandoned objects. Sometimes pathetic but often touching, these fragments of personal histories seemed always to be part and parcel of the dust that covered them. Every now and then, in Paris, she would push open the door of a second$-$hand clothes shop, and admire

the originality of the somewhat outdated dresses

and beautifully$-$cut ladies$$ suits. The clothes were all

different, each item unique. Clearly they had been worn very little. A woman had once loved them, then cast them aside. Anne found things there that she never saw in regular clothes shops, items that seemed attractive precisely because they weren$$t available through the standard distribution channels. B