Step into the trendiest clothes stores in Britain or the US and you may be surprised by what's hanging from the rails. There'll be coats with rips in the pockets and shoes scuffed at the heel---lasting traces of the items' previous owners. Yes, these clothes are second-hand. But if you're a young and hip fashionista, you certainly won't view them as second-rate. A couple of years ago, before the recession hit the Western world, shopping at charity shops and secondhand clothing markets had a stigma attached to it. The clothes were seen as shabby and old-fashioned and the customers more so. It's pretty safe to say that, back then, if you could afford to shop elsewhere, you would. But today, with young people strapped for cash, second-hand clothing has made a comeback. “I don't see shopping in charity shops as a worse option at all”, said 24-year-old Fran Hall, a recent graduate of King's College London. "You can find some great stuff in there and people are always impressed if they like something you're wearing and you tell them it's from a charity shop," Fran continued. “I guess people just think about what a great bargain you've got.” The trend for vintage( 过时的,老式的) clothing goes some way to explain the rise of second-hand items. Although vintage pieces haven't necessarily been worn before, they do all come from a previous era. It's not only bargain basement fashion stores that have become popular. In the UK's Poundland shops, which stock everything from cosmetics to dog biscuits, business is booming. Each shop stocks approximately 3, 000 products, Including 800 big-name brands, and most importantly, every item is priced at (1l yuan) or less. How do the shops make money if they sell at such low prices? Manufacturers, it seems, are willing to bring down prices in return for big volume purchases. Of course, success is also down to the huge numbers of customers the stores attract. And surprisingly perhaps, the millions of shoppers that pass through Poundland come from all types of socio-economic groups. Accordingly, the shops perform just as well in many affluent areas as in deprived neighborhoods.