I often say that I work in the world’s most sustainable sector. Just like the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), I have spent decades urging and encouraging people to re-use and buy antiques in order to reduce climate change. But it is not always easy to make your voice heard.
Someone who has been more successful and has really made people stand up and listen is Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old girl who has already graced the covers of TIME and Society, not to mention being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and speaking at the UN. But how did a young Swedish schoolgirl get the whole world to listen, after the antiques business, researchers and politicians tried for so long?
The answer is simple. She speaks about something that concerns us all. And unlike most politicians, she does so in a way that everyone can understand.
With the same sense, inner strength and conviction as Pippi Longstocking, but with braids hanging straight down instead of sticking up at the sides, she takes to stage after stage, square after square, city after city with her well-chosen words. Brief and to the point, she overcomes everyone’s doubts by delivering the uncompromised truth, so that politicians weep, children demonstrate and the hairs on our arms stand up.
Clearly, the message cannot be dismissed as political or populist. Above all, this is because in our hearts we know and see the consequences of our actions from generations ago and the effect it has on the future of our children, but we also can’t forget that its’ for ourselves and the times we live in, here and now.
But perhaps most of all, it is because these words come from a child. There is something infinitely more credible about a child’s uncorrupted message and young voice brimming with energy instead of an adult’s cynical, tiresome and doctored admonitions or excuses.
What today’s most famous Swede and best known 15-year-old didn’t know one year ago when she sat on the sidewalk outside Sweden’s parliament in August, is that she would also become the antique world’s most prominent spokesperson.
Now it is our turn to carry the torch and agree on the message that it pays to buy and furnish second-hand. Especially, antiques. For many reasons, not least the economic side. While the global prices of 20th-century design have risen dramatically over the past two decades, the prices of classical, everyday antiques have tumbled over the same period. Today, you can buy a unique handmade chest of drawers of fantastic quality made in the early 19th century for less than a new one available at the giant store with the cheap hotdogs (IKEA).
But, as already mentioned, it is above all the younger generations, Generation Y and Generation Z, for whom the second-hand market is increasingly the first choice when it comes to buying furniture and decor.
Knowing that it benefits both the wallet and the environment to buy sustainable and quality antiques in the second-hand market, everyone should be convinced about the renaissance of antiques!
