Category — Secondhand Stores

Earlier this summer I did something that I just hate—went shopping at regular retail stores for a new bathing suit. After trying on stacks and stacks of swimsuits at three different places, I found one that wasn’t terrible. It was all very discouraging.  

How interesting, I thought, that I never leave a thrift store feeling discouraged, even if I try on what seems like half of what’s in the store and find nothing worth buying. 

Maybe shopping for secondhand clothing is so much more fun than shopping regular retail because of my expectations. When everything is brand new, I somehow feel that at least some of it should look terrific on me. Secondhand stores, however, are filled with stuff that’s been rejected by somebody else for one reason or another. I expect used clothing stores will have loads and loads of stuff that I don’t want. Not finding anything great doesn’t surprise me, but when I do find something great, it’s an absolute thrill.

Anyway, to get back to swimsuit situation, the friend who was with me on this shopping ordeal (she also had to try on about a thousand to find just one that was reasonably attractive) suggested that if somebody could just come up with a bathing suit that covers every single inch of our bodies, that person would become wealthy indeed. 

In my last blog, I wrote about how I feel a dressing room is a necessity at secondhand clothing stores. Today I list a few thrift store pleasantries that encourage me to part with my money:

v     I get a little nervous if a secondhand shop is too clean and pretty, because I start to think that I might have wandered into Macy’s by accident. I like my thrifts to be rough around the edges. Then again, some are never, ever swept or vacuumed, and that’s really unpleasant.

v     Everyday prices should be low enough so that I’m not standing around, looking at price tags and wondering why I didn’t just go to Target. Low cost is one of my main motivators for shopping used. Sale days, of course, are always a plus.

v     There needs to be enough lighting to see the merchandise.

v     A rack for clothing that people have tried on but do not want to buy is helpful because so many shoppers just leave the clothes in the dressing room. 

Just the other day a friend and I decided that the one thing that’s most important for secondhand clothing shops to have is a decent dressing room, with doors instead of curtains. I know that lots of people either do not try on clothing before they buy it or are absolutely happy trying things on right in the aisles, say pulling pants on underneath a roomy skirt or pulling a shirt over a thin top. But I won’t shop without a dressing room because most thrifts do not accept returns, I’m particular about how my clothes fit me and I need the privacy of a dressing room to make a considered judgment about whether to buy or not.  

Since we’re on the subject of dressing rooms, let’s get specific. There should be enough of them so that there aren’t long lines and they should have hooks for hanging up the clothes, a chair for sitting down to put shoes back on and a mirror.  

Dressing rooms also need locks. I can’t possibly be the only person who’s noticed how many people do not knock before they try to open the door. It happens to me all the time. Whenever it does, I make a point of yelling out, “IT’S RUDE TO TRY THE DOOR HANDLE BEFORE YOU KNOCK.” I kid myself that I’ll embarrass the person into behaving better. 

Although I tend to think of used clothing as something that’s great for those of us who don’t have loads of cash, on my visit to Connecticut where I found the pair of Ferragamos, which I’ve written about in the last 2 entries, I noticed an unusually large number of consignment shops. They were all in wealthy suburban areas, close to New York City, and I wondered why people who live in such lavish homes are selling their used clothing. And do the people in those lavish houses also buy from the consignment shops? 

I don’t have any satisfying answers here.  One friend suggested that women who don’t have jobs but who do have lots of expensive stuff might need to sell off some of their $1,000 purses and $2,000 dresses just to have cash for themselves. That made some sense, but it doesn’t explain the sheer number of consignment stores. Anyone out there want to enlighten me?

I was talking to a friend of my daughter who is a junior in high school about her future plans. She told me that she really loves filmmaking, but will probably go into something practical instead, like physics, which she hates. I’m not sure of how much she was kidding me, but since I have one teenager who will be going to college soon, and another who is already there, I hear a lot these days about the practicality of various career choices. I met this particular girl, the one who loves film, when she was seven years old and I was volunteering in my daughter’s classroom. When I first saw her, I could see the brilliance that was behind her eyes. The thought of all of us not getting to see her movies because she wants to be practical really upsets me. 

On the other hand, what absolutely delights me is meeting somebody who loves his or her work. In my last blog entry, I wrote about the glorious Ferragamos that I bought at a consignment store. The owner of the place is somebody who is doing just the right kind of work. She loves and has a wonderful eye for the clothing and also enjoys the customers. If you are ever in Greenwich, Connecticut, the name of the store is Consigned Designs by Ellen.           

I wonder what kind of a world it would be if we all felt like Ellen at the consignment shop, and just loved our jobs. We all know that this is not the case. The person who manages the thrift store that’s right around the corner from where I live is miserable and grouchy and makes shopping so unpleasant that I’ve stopped going there altogether. Perhaps she’s a frustrated filmmaker who somehow wound up selling secondhand clothing.