Prologue

Summary

By the late 1990s when I had completed the research and writing for my book, Salaula: The World of Secondhand Clothing and Zambia (2000a), several processes with global scope overlapped to change the global clothing landscape in previously unimaginable ways, including in Zambia. The digital age had brought Internet access and new inspirations from transnational images, products, and styles. It also facilitated Internet commerce and innovations in both new and secondhand markets. Generally regarded as a phenomenon stemming from the beginning of the twenty-first century, fast fashion affected clothing markets everywhere. The expiration in 2005 of the World Trade Organization’s Multi-Fibre Arrangement enabled tariff-free entry for clothing and textiles manufactured in China into previously restricted markets on an unprecedented scale. Concerns about the growing import from China into Zambia soon eclipsed the public criticism of imported secondhand clothing, which continued to fill its own popular market niche.