The notion of shopping and wearing clothing that some stranger wore and sweated in is just too much for some people. Watch this video for a new perspective on perspiration and used clothing.

On occasion, when my friend Bea and I are hanging out at our local thrift store, she grabs my hand and forces me to touch garments made out of fabrics that are a tactile nightmare. She thinks she’s funny. I’m left with the uncomfortable memory of stiff, itchy fabric.

The purpose of this website is to point out that there is good, sometimes even beautiful, used clothing available at secondhand stores. What I rarely mention is that part of the fun of shopping secondhand is seeing puzzlingly hideous clothing, ugly doo-dads, horrible paintings and pitiful, abandoned dollies. I’m constantly asking myself why anybody would design/make/buy/donate/or put this awful stuff on the shelf, even if the shelf is located in the cheapest-of-the-cheap charity thrift store.

While I’m content to sit and ask myself questions about all of this grotesque stuff, Jacob Williamson, creator of Thrifthorror: Things from Beyond the Bargain Bin, hunts it down, photographs it and then writes about it at length. If you have not yet fallen on the floor laughing today, I strongly suggest that you check out his wonderfully written blog.

As I compose this, I’m at home with a cold, so I’m missing my regular weekly thrift store trip with my pal, Bea. We go on Wednesdays because that’s the day when almost all of the clothing is 1/2 off. By the time I get there next week, at least some the great stuff that I would have found today will be gone, having been discovered by some other bargain hunter. At least I don’t have to worry about missing any of the ugly, hilarious things, though, because they will all still be there.

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.

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!

 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.

I admit it—I sometimes buy new clothing. In fact there are items that I never, ever buy used, and I don’t even look in the areas of the store where these things are located. Everyone has a limit, even me. Here’s what I will only buy new:

1. Any and all underwear, except for beautiful old slips, which I love.
2. Swimwear. I don’t enjoy swimming and haven’t owned a bathing suit for the last decade. If I did need one, though, I’d spring for a new suit.
3. Socks.
4. Gloves or mittens made out of fabric, although I do occasionally buy used gloves that are made out of leather.

As a family, we are very careful to spend less than we have, and buying used clothing is one of the ways we do so. Since we’re saving so much on our clothing bills, we can afford to buy a few brand new things.

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. 

25 years ago, I paid $130 for a new silver necklace, and within the same week, went to a thrift store and found an old sterling bracelet, made in Mexico, for $12. That hooked me! Since then, I’ve gotten all sorts of jewelry at flea markets, thrift stores, antique shops and yard sales.  

 My favorite jewelry has always been sterling, but lately I’ve been having a fling with old costume pieces. I’m not a collector; I just buy what I want to wear. This weekend I found a Sarah Coventry matched bracelet and earring set from the 60’s (I dated it by doing a quick Internet search when I came home) and a blue rhinestone and faux silver necklace/earring set. I spent $17 for the two sets. 

I’ve found that the jewelry at flea markets usually costs more than at thrift stores or yard sales, because the people selling are generally the dealers who scour the thrifts and yard sales, then raise the price to make a profit. There’s nothing quite like finding a fantastic pair of sterling earrings for less than a dollar, and I have done this on occasion at my local thrift store. But the flea markets and antique stores are still fun, and the variety can be tremendous.

Brief note: I changed my categories today and hope this makes it easier to find blogs that are of interest.