Uncover how the Sheffield vintage fashion scene is helping combat fast fashion through second-hand gear. Retro gear has become a crucial first-team player toward a more sustainable future.
Fighting Fast Fashion
Sheffield’s vintage scene is alive with colour, texture, and history. Walk past the shop fronts, and you’ll see racks lined with 90s jackets, retro band tees, and classic football shirts, some probably older than you and me. In these stores, students rummage through rails to find a bargain. Collectors hunt for rare finds, and more and more shoppers are swapping fast fashion for something that means more. This isn’t just about looking good. It is far more than a style choice. Every second-hand purchase is a small win against the waste piling up in landfills. In a time when most clothes we buy seem to last just a couple of washes, football gear has become an unexpected ally in the green goal.
The Rise of Retro Football Fashion: Vintage Vintage
James Totty, Social Media Manager at Vintage Vintage, has seen first-hand how sustainability and nostalgia go hand in hand as they join forces to take on something even bigger than a title race: fast fashion. ‘To me, sustainability and fashion mean passing down garments with history and character. Whether within families or communities, it creates a deeper sense of identity and connection to where you come from. This idea of identity is undoubtedly wrapped up in both football and fashion. As a result, second-hand football attire is getting that second chance. He continues to say. ‘A lot of vintage football shirts will be from old family, it’s the fact that the club is a part of you, keeping that history, remembering where it is that you came from. In a city like Sheffield, football allegiances run deep. ‘The Steel City derby day, for example, between Sheffield United and Wednesday, I saw some of the shirts from the 80s and 90s a lot, which would have been brought from second-hand stores who put a lot of emphasis on not just being successful but also ethical.’
According to James, a single t-shirt takes 2,700 litres of water to produce. An insane amount for something that often gets worn a handful of times before being discarded. This is exactly why second-hand isn’t merely about nostalgia, it is a solution that football is actively driving forward. ‘We pretty much try to combat the production of fast fashion. We are using stuff that would have gone to landfill. And the impact is significant: ‘As a company, we’ve saved around 50,000 tonnes from landfill in just six to twelve months.’
Today, football shirts are no longer solely about allegiances; they have become an essential part of Sheffield’s green movement. ‘The football side has been key in appealing to people’s family history, dedication to a sport and to a time, while being just as dedicated to saving our planet.’
The German Blade: A Second-Hand Devotee
The connection between football and sustainability isn’t a trend, it is something deeply personal. Karl Mittlestadt knows this better than most. A lifelong football fan and a self-proclaimed thrifter. His journey from Germany to Sheffield is told by the shirts and scarves he’s collected along the way. From Dusseldorf to Portugal, Spain, and now England, every kit tells us a part of his story, as well as representing a conscious choice to avoid waste for reasons so special to him.
‘In Germany, I never brought a Dusseldorf kit,’ Karl recalls. ‘Although I have had a season ticket at Düsseldorf since… I don’t know, since dinosaurs were here, all my kits were actually my dad’s. One day I asked him for a new kit, he said ‘‘Warum ein neues? Mein altes ist in Ordnung?’’ (Why a new one? My old one is fine!).
30 years on, that mindset never left him.
‘From when I was maybe 12-13 years old, I wore only my dad’s football shirts, sometimes they were so big, all my friends said I played football in a dress. They called me princess Karl.’
But what started as hand-me-downs from his dad soon became a way of life. When Karl moved to Portugal at 22, he wasn’t rushing to club shops for the latest releases, he was scouring little second-hand stalls for old Benfica and Braga kits from a few seasons ago. He couldn’t possibly buy any colour other than red. ‘I didn’t have to pay the crazy prices at club shops, and honestly, why would I? As my father said, ‘Why a new one? The old one is fine!’’
It wasn’t until he moved to Spain that he began to learn a lot more about the climate. His collection of red shirts grew, but so did his urge to make a difference. ‘The climate conversation started picking up, and I realised that most of these shirts and nice scarves people throw away end up in landfills. I lived in Bilbao, and I think I bought maybe eight or nine shirts, scarves and some hats too and it was here where I stopped buying anything that is not second hand.’
Before this, he only ever thrifted football shirts, pre-worn, washed, and resold; now, he buys exclusively second-hand.
‘And I can remember thinking that of course I am just one person, but if I start to buy clothes that would have gone to waste, and I tell one person to do the same, and then they say to one more person and then more and more, suddenly this one person has made a big change.’
By the time Karl moved to Sheffield, he had already built a surreal collection of pre-worn and resold shirts, as well as scarves he would collect from games he had been to. These shirts and scarves spanned multiple clubs across Europe. It went beyond saving money, it was saving history and saving perfectly good clothes from landfill. And upon his arrival in Sheffield, it wasn’t long before football played its part again. A workmate, a lifelong Sheffield United fan, dragged him to the Steel City derby at Hillsborough in the famous 4-2 victory over Wednesday.
‘I was in the away end wearing my colleague’s Billy Sharp kit, she was like me she loved the old vintage shops and there are so many in Sheffield it is unbelievable.’ In the city centre alone, there are 8-10 vintage stores, many of whom are dedicated to the climate cause.
‘I think for me what sums it all up is that from Germany to Portugal, to Spain to now England, football has become almost a reminder of my journey. Not only that, but the 20/30 shirts I have all remind me and make me think that I, as just one person, have helped the world. Even if in reality I have not done a lot, I like to believe that I saved the world anyways!’
If you want a guide on how to source gems in or outside of Sheffield check out: https://jusmedia.co.uk/kitroomcollective/?p=42213
The Rescue mission: Glass Onion
But where exactly do all these vintage gems come from? How are they gathered and stocked up to be re-distributed? That is where Glass Onion comes in. Based in Sheffield, Barnsley, and Leeds, they have become one of the biggest names in the Yorkshire vintage scene.
Robyn Campbell, supervisor at Glass Onion, reveals: ‘A lot of our stock comes from Europe and America. Mostly wholesale items that would’ve been discarded or donated stuff from overstocked charity shops.’
Then, their process is simple.
‘‘We have a warehouse locally, in Barnsley. Everything gets sent there, we go through it all, it is all graded, selected and washed and it gets sent to us, we price depending on quality so that everything gets seen and re-sold.
’She continued to say: ‘We constantly try to reuse and recycle all of our products from dresses, shirts, trousers, even books!’
She believes that within this cycle of saving and repurposing, football has found a place. ‘Most of our football stock is from Europe and America, it’s a massive seller, especially for students in Sheffield.
’The demand fluctuates, and sales will spike for matchdays, but the charm of vintage gear is everlasting. It isn’t just the locals getting in on it. ‘We get a lot of people coming from other countries as well, and they’ll love the scarves because there may be one from Germany or Spain, etc.’
‘The scarves we get in huge quantities they get donated a lot and a lot again are just recycled so they’re hugely popular, some are very old and people love the old stuff as we know!’ One At A Time From salvaging clothing destined for landfill, to telling personal stories through fashion, football’s influence stretches far beyond 90 minutes. In an era where sustainability is under the spotlight, football, the world sport, has truly made a difference in the long battle against waste. As James Totty put it, ‘Through social media and the news, people are more aware about what is happening with the environment, which I think has pushed in Northern areas.’ With every second-hand shirt brought, every old scarf revived, and every vintage kit cherished, football fans are doing more than preserving history; they are helping shape a greener future. One shirt at a time.