Official Site of Secondhand Wardrobe Week, February 26 – March 3, 2012

It’s impossible to tune in to any media source these days without hearing the dismal news about the economy. One thing it means to me is that those of us who have a bit of extra cash need to be giving some of it to food banks and shelters. Donating your good used clothing is another way to help because rather than wasting away in your closet, it can get used by somebody who really needs it. And if you spend your clothing dollars at thrift stores run by charities that help people in need, your money goes where it can do some good.

The other night, after months of really bitter cold, my husband and I broke down and went to the enormous mall (we’re talking 1,700,000 square feet of retail space). Neither one of us likes going to malls because the point of them is to part people from their money. But on this particular night, we really needed to get out of the house. Because of the extreme cold, there weren’t a lot of choices.

It had been so long since we’d visited this place that I’d forgotten about the volume and variety of stuff being sold. Stuff for your home, stuff to wear, stuff to cook with, and especially stuff for bored teenagers who spend a lot of time wandering around the mall learning to become consuming adults.

On my regular thrift store jaunts, I’m constantly scratching my head, wondering why so much barely used or brand new clothing winds up there. The rare trip to my local mall reminds me that other folks have very different spending habits than I do. Will the recent downturn in the economy start to change that? It certainly has for some people, but that’s another topic for another day.

Meanwhile, I have to admit that I succumbed to the temptations of the mall on that cold night. I bought one book from the dollar store.

My friend Joanne recently emailed me to say that she feels “kinda ‘funny’ about wearing someone else’s clothes (you know, vibes and spirits from the original owner). But”, she went on to write, “in today’s economy, perhaps I should re-think that.” She raises an interesting point. In general, if something gives me the heebie-jeebies, I stay away from it. Put another way, I believe that my intuition always works in my favor. I have made my best decisions when I’ve paid attention to it, and my worst ones when I’ve ignored it. So I try to pay attention. When I run into something in a thrift store that gives me the creeps, I leave the item there, even if it’s really, really inexpensive, and I really, really like it. That being said, in all the years I’ve been thrift store shopping, it’s only happened a few times. Once I brought home a sweater that had an unpleasant feel about it. I washed it and wore it a few times. It continued to give me the creeps, so I donated it back to the thrift store. I don’t know if my unpleasant feeling had to do with something physical about the sweater (itchy fiber? not quite the right color?), or if I really was picking up the vibe from a former owner. At that point, it didn’t matter to me what was bothersome about the garment because I’d gotten my two dollars and fifty cents worth out of it.

My New Treasure

Most of my wardrobe is secondhand, but I occasionally sew myself a new garment. Since I don’t have a lot of time to sew, I want these items to turn out wonderfully—but life doesn’t always work the way I want it to. I once spent forever altering a jeans pattern, thinking I could make it fit perfectly. Unfortunately, the finished jeans looked like they were sprayed on. I could barely breathe in them, even though the addition of lycra to the fabric blend made them stretchy. I also once made myself a jacket that I painstakingly hand quilted only to find that all those stitches made the material so stiff that it hung on my body like cardboard. I donated those two garments to my local thrift store. That way somebody else could enjoy my work.

But sometimes the tables get turned. Just last week I became the one who gets to enjoy somebody else’s work. I paid two dollars for a hand crocheted sweater that looks like it’s never been worn. Could it have been an unwanted present, or did the person who made it find that it just wasn’t right after they sewed on the last carefully selected button? The sweater isn’t revealing its origin, so I’ll never know. I’ll just have to wear it and enjoy.