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

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.

Secondhand finds

Yesterday five dollars and thirty-one cents bought me two mugs, a pair of Harvé Barnard dress pants, workout shorts and the late, great George Carlin’s book, Brain Droppings. The store was especially crowded, as it always is a few days before Halloween. The holiday crowd makes me wonder why used clothing is considered OK on Halloween, but is looked down upon every other day of the year.

My last blog entry was about ready-to-wear clothing that doesn’t fit properly. Just so you know that you’re not the only one who has trouble in this area, today I’m sharing some of my own fitting challenges:

1. I occasionally make myself a top out of non-stretch fabric, and when I do, getting it to fit properly requires 17 pattern changes! I don’t even bother trying on ready-to-wear tops that aren’t stretchy because they never, ever fit properly.
2. I’m short, but not quite short enough for petite pants. I currently have a stack of pants down in my studio that will be great this winter once I get around to hemming them.
3. And speaking of pants, manufacturers often use fabric for casual pants such as jeans and corduroys that has some stretch. Stretch is a good thing because garments with stretch fit better and are more comfortable, but manufacturers usually use the same fabric for the waistband that they use in the rest of the pant. That means that the waist stretches and the pants either threaten to fall right off or they gape in the back every time you bend at the waist. I alter these pants by taking out some of the fullness along the back seam and the waistband.

Just think of me the next time your pants threaten to hit the ground. And if you just don’t want to alter your waistband, wear a belt!

Today I have an assignment for everyone who has ever felt that clothing doesn’t fit properly. I want you to go someplace where there are a lot of people and unobtrusively check out how everybody is shaped. If you’re paying attention, you’ll see that we come in all sorts of packages. It’s an example of nature doing that thing of creating infinite variety.

Now consider this—how are manufacturers supposed to make ready-to-wear clothing that will fit all of our body types well? The answer is that it’s not possible. Some manufacturers make regular, petite and tall versions in every size from extra-small to extra-extra-large, but many, many people still have trouble finding clothing that fits well.

So if you’re tired of garments that sag here and are too tight there, what are you supposed to do? Here’s the plan—1) remember that we aren’t all meant to be alike and that it’s the clothing that needs altering, not you and 2) learn how to do alterations or find somebody else who can do them for you. If you don’t have either the skill to do it yourself or the cash to pay somebody else, I’ve got a great book for you, Jan Saunders’ Wardrobe Quick-Fixes. She offers both sewing and non-sewing solutions for common fit problems. Sadly, the book has been out of print for some time, but you can still find it on Amazon.

(Please note that I have been on the lookout for a newer book on the same topic for years and haven’t found anything that comes close. Suggestions for other publications would be greatly welcomed!)

Manufacturers often put their names, slogans and logos on clothing, but this time Tommy Hilfiger really went overboard. I was sniffing around one of my favorite secondhand stores when I found a tee shirt with the following printed on the chest:

Tom-my Hil-fig-er 1.: American 2: quality tailored clothing, sportswear, jeans and athletic apparel for men, women and children adj. 3: fun, free, spirited, a desirable addition to your wardrobe 4: a group of people who demand distinctive style ＜~ customers have an eye for details ＞ v. 5:to twist tradition, to reinvent the classics to create FASHION FREEDOM 6: to chuck convention, but with panache syn see Duke and Dutchess of Windsor 7: Whoever you are, whatever you wear, TOMMY HILFIGER is you.

This whole issue of logos/slogans/names of companies prominently displayed on garments raises an interesting question for me. I understand that the companies benefit when people wear this stuff, but why do consumers go along with it?

If one of the things you love about thrift stores is the often-ghastly collection of knick-knacks lurking on the shelves, you’ve got to check out Thrift Shop Horrors, a community on Live Journal. I can’t visit the site every day because I need to have time for things like eating and sleeping as well as writing blog entries, but when I go there, I practically fall out of my seat from laughing at the pictures and the comments.

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!)

I really love stripes, even to the point of sometimes combining different ones. I hadn’t found any striped shirts for a while and was happy that my secondhand wardrobe finds for the week were two for two dollars each–one for summer and one for winter. Yeah stripes!