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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Phillip Inman and Jem Bartholomew

Are young people poised to slam the brake on endless economic growth?

Young woman photographing vintage leather bag for resale
Some younger consumers are turning to vintage clothing sites and spurning mainstream retail . Photograph: Alamy

When Kat Butler made her first post-lockdown trip to the high street in 2021, she found herself staring, disorientated, at the aisles of clothes in the Perth branch of Mountain Warehouse. “There was just rails and rails of stuff,” she says.

Before the pandemic, Butler, 36, a freelance graphic designer, had enjoyed browsing clothes shops, touching the fabrics and inspecting garments’ construction. But when she returned after the lockdown months, she was “just overwhelmed by the amount of stuff”.

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