Category — Secondhand Wardrobe Style and Fashion

Award season is here and so are the shows featuring fashion editors who critique celebrity outfits. So-and-so’s hair looked shellacked, somebody else’s shoes were so last year, and (I love this the best) that celebrity always plays it safe and needs to try something more daring. Of course she’s playing it safe, I say to myself, she wants to blend in so that you don’t pick at her.

I believe that this institutionalized sniping is a kind of bullying that creates a general fear of taking chances when we get dressed. If celebrities get criticized for their clothing choices even though they have teams of people helping them to look so fantastic, the rest of us must be getting it wrong all the time. Better to just blend in and never try anything new. When the fashion industry tells us to wear purple this season, better to just wear it. This is great for the industry, but very bad when it comes to our personal style because style is fearless. It means going out on a limb with your clothing, and taking your own counsel when it comes to what looks good on you instead of just dressing like everybody else.

Those of us who joyfully wear a secondhand wardrobe are less willing to follow fashion dictates. You have to rely on your own creativity when the items in your closet come from various sources and time periods. 

I often tape awards shows and watch them in fast-forward to see the pretty dresses. And I also sometimes watch the sniping shows that follow. They give me the chance to see the dresses all over again and then yell at the TV when I think the commentators are getting mean.

It seems that every time I go into a bookstore, I see another volume about how to start off with a basic tee shirt and then slice, dice, knot and sometimes sew it into a one-of-a-kind garment. Of course, this is the sort of project that lends itself beautifully to the secondhand wardrobe because the thrifts (and maybe even your own closet) are loaded with give-away tees.

My favorite book that takes the reader step-by-step through the slice-‘n-dice process is called Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-Shirt, by Megan Nicolay. She shows the reader how to turn an oversized, boxy tee with advertising slogans and logos into a decorative addition to your wardrobe. So grab those tees that are from the company picnic, your last 10k run or your neighborhood hardware store opening, consult with Megan and make them into a little halter top, skirt, or maybe even a wedding gown.

My blue blazer brought to me by the secondhand wardrobe spirit.

I love a casual jacket in the cooler weather, so last Wednesday, when I went to my local thrift store, that’s the first rack that I checked out.  At this particular place, everything is arranged by color, and I perused only those colors that I know are flattering, skipping over light brown, maroon and orange, which make me look like I need bed rest.

Eliminating all jackets that looked either too big or too small, I found two possibilities. One was yellow cotton duck and the other was blue heavy flannel in a traditional blazer style. The yellow duck looked great on the hanger, but the blue flannel, I just wasn’t so sure about. I’m usually not crazy about blazers because they’re too stuffy for my taste. But when I tried them on, the yellow fit terribly and the blue looked smashing. The casual color and fabric balanced out the stuffy style. For $3.50, I took it home and saw that I can wear it with most of my pants and 5 of my shirts. Bingo!

Regular retail stores tend to have lots of sizes but not a lot of choices in terms of style. Secondhand stores are the opposite—there are many styles but scattered sizing. That means I need to look more to find something that fits me when I’m shopping secondhand. It also means that I am more open to just about anything that fits, even if it’s unlike anything I’ve ever worn before. It is precisely because of the wealth of styles and the paucity of sizing that secondhand stores have opened me up to a world of style possibilities that I never would have considered. And this is another reason why I love a secondhand wardrobe so much—whenever I visit a thrift store, there is always the chance that I’ll find some new, wonderful thing I’d never thought of before, until that moment when the secondhand wardrobe spirit placed the garment in my hands.

They say that 80’s fashions are back. Whenever it happens that an old style is re-introduced, I start thinking about how those of us who appreciate a secondhand wardrobe are at a distinct advantage. As long as the new fashions reference a time period that’s within the last couple of decades, chances are good that you’ll find a selection of the real thing (of course, at the cheapest of the cheap prices) at your local secondhand store.

Whenever designers start borrowing from an earlier trend, they change things around a bit. Today’s 80’s fashions are less monumental in the shoulders, don’t include big hair and do mix bright flashy colors and prints with neutrals. If I wanted to wear this look today, I’d seek out a few bright 80’s pieces to wear with other, more obviously current items. Notice that I said if I wanted to wear the look. I think other people should enjoy the trend, but for myself, well, I actually lived through the 80’s, and once was enough for me.

(Note to readers: I haven’t written for the last few weeks because I’ve been preoccupied with changing my blogging software. I hope that the change will provide more flexibility as well as more visibility. Sorry to disrupt the flow!)

 Thrift store jewels that I’ll make into other treasures.  

I’ve written before about how much I love vintage jewelry. Some pieces I wear as they are; others I disassemble to use the components to make something new. Yesterday while I was nosing around my local public library, I found a great new book on how to take bits and pieces of old jewelry, plastic cake decorations and doll furniture and turn them into necklaces, bracelets, earrings, shoe clips and more. The Naughty Secretary Club: The Working Girl’s Guide to Handmade Jewelry isn’t for those who love only pearls, solid gold and diamond jewelry. But if you’d enjoy a necklace made of plastic gnomes, you should check out this book.