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thrift store chic
how to look like a million bucks on a bookstore paycheck
nadia f.  •  chicago  •  est. 1998

Hi. I'm Nadia, I'm 24, I work at a bookstore, and I am the best-dressed person I know. These two facts are related, because a bookstore paycheck buys you exactly nothing at the mall, so I learned to shop where the good stuff goes to be forgotten. About 90% of my closet came from thrift stores, church rummage sales and the occasional estate sale, and people ask me where I got things constantly. I used to lie. Now I just send them here. This page is for everybody who has ever looked at a $180 wool skirt in a magazine and sighed. Sigh no more. Somebody bought that skirt in 1987, wore it twice, and it is hanging in a Salvation Army right now for six dollars waiting for you. • thrift strategy   • what's worth tailoring   • fall 1999, decoded   • best finds of 1999   • photos (ha)

thrift strategy Thrifting is a sport. Here are the rules I play by. 1. Go on weekday mornings. Most stores put out new stock during the week, and the weekend crowd has picked over everything by Saturday noon. My day off is Tuesday. Tuesday at 10 a.m. is when I do my best work. If you have a lunch hour, use it. 2. Know which stores get what. The thrift in the rich suburb gets the good coats. The one by the university gets the vintage jeans and the weird 70s stuff. The church rummage sale gets Grandma's cashmere. Make a circuit and learn each store's personality. And find out their tag-color sale days: most big thrifts mark one color of tag half off every week. 3. Touch everything. Look at nothing. Walk down the rack running your hand over the clothes. Wool, silk, cotton, linen and cashmere feel different from polyester, and your hand will find them faster than your eyes will. When something feels good, THEN look at it. 4. Buy natural fibers. Check the tag. 100% wool, cotton, silk, linen. Natural fibers were more expensive to begin with, they last, they can be tailored, and they don't pill or hold odors the way polyester does. A wool blazer from 1985 still looks like a wool blazer. A polyester blazer from 1985 looks like 1985. 5. Check the seams and the armpits. Seriously. Turn it inside out. Look for split seams (fixable), moth holes (in wool, hold it up to the light), stains on the underarms (not fixable; walk away), a broken zipper (fixable, about $10), missing buttons (fixable, and a chance to put on better buttons). Smell it. If it smells like a basement, it will always smell like a basement. 6. Ignore the size on the tag. Sizes have changed over the years and a size 10 from 1975 is not a size 10 from 1999. Try it on. Wear a leotard or a tank top and leggings so you can try things on over your clothes in the aisle when there's no dressing room. 7. Have a list, but be a little unfaithful to it. Go in knowing you need a black skirt and a winter coat. Leave with the black skirt, the coat, and the perfect 1960s silk scarf you didn't know you needed. Do not leave with a third pair of jeans that almost fit. 8. The 30-second rule. If I can't picture what I'd wear it with in 30 seconds, it goes back on the rack. This is how I stopped owning a lime green satin blouse. 9. Wash everything the minute you get home. Everything. Dry-clean the wool and silk (budget for it), machine wash the rest hot. Then it's yours.

what's worth tailoring Here is the secret that separates people who look thrifty from people who look chic: the tailor. Rich women have everything altered. So should you. There is a little dry cleaner with a tailor in the back on every third block in this city, and a good one is worth more than any store. The math: a $6 wool skirt plus a $12 hem is an $18 skirt that fits you exactly, which is more than you can say for most $60 skirts. Do it. Worth it (cheap, easy, huge difference): Hemming pants and skirts. $10-15. The single best thing you can do. Shortening sleeves on a jacket (if there are no working buttonholes at the cuff). $15-25. Taking in the waist on a skirt or pants. $12-20. Taking in the side seams of a dress or blouse. $15-25. Replacing a zipper. About $10-15. Replacing buttons. Do it yourself. A card of good buttons from the fabric store transforms a boring coat. Tapering wide 80s pant legs into something normal. $15-20. Those pants were $4. Usually not worth it (expensive, risky, or just impossible): Letting anything OUT. There's rarely enough fabric in the seam. If it's too small, it's too small. Taking in the shoulders of a jacket. It can be done, but it's $40+ and it's surgery. Buy jackets that fit in the shoulders and fix everything else. Re-lining a coat. Beautiful, but $60-100. Only for a truly great coat. Anything on a garment that was cheap to begin with. A $2 polyester blouse is not worth $15 of alterations. Find a good tailor: ask the best-dressed older woman you know. She has one. Bring the tailor something small first, see how it comes back, and then trust her with the good coat.

fall 1999, decoded I read the September issues at work on my break (perk of the job) so you don't have to. Here's what the magazines say we're wearing this fall, and where the thrift angle is. Gray. All of it. Charcoal, heather, dove, flannel gray. Gray is the new black, which is fine because black is also still black. Thrift angle: every man's suit ever made is gray. A men's gray flannel trouser, tapered and hemmed, is a hundred-dollar look for $4. Also gray cashmere sweaters from the rummage sale. Also anything from the 1950s. Camel. Camel coats, camel skirts, camel with gray, camel with black. Very ladylike, very 1960s. Thrift angle: the camel coat is THE thrift store find. Older women bought them well, wore them carefully, and they turn up in beautiful shape. Check the lining, take it to the tailor, and you own a coat for the next 20 years. I found mine in April (see below). Expect to pay $15-30 for a good one; that's the splurge on this page. Boot-cut pants. Finally something that isn't skinny or gigantic. A little flare at the ankle, sits at the hip, worn long over a boot. Thrift angle: the racks are full of 1970s flares, and the difference between a 70s flare and a 1999 boot-cut is about two inches of fabric at the hem. Your tailor will taper them for $15. Corduroy ones especially. The pashmina. Big soft cashmere shawl, in every color, worn wrapped around everything. Every magazine, every celebrity, $300 and up. Thrift angle: okay, you're not finding an actual pashmina at Goodwill. But large cashmere and lambswool scarves and shawls from the 70s and 80s show up all the time, and a vintage wool challis shawl with a fringe gives you the same drape for a fraction of the price. Nobody is going to check the label. Wear it with confidence. Chunky-heeled boots. A thick, square-ish heel, ankle or knee high, black or brown leather, worn with the boot-cut pants and with skirts and tights. Thrift angle: shoes are the hardest thing to thrift, I won't lie to you. But 1970s leather boots are built like tanks and a cobbler can re-heel and re-sole them for $20-30. Look for real leather, check the inside for wear, and if they fit, buy them. I have a pair of 1975 brown leather knee boots that get more compliments than anything else I own. Also on the pages: leather (a leather skirt or a leather jacket, always thriftable, look for the good stuff from the 80s), animal prints in small doses (a scarf, not a coat, unless you're my aunt), fur collars and trims (vintage racks are full of them; the moral question is yours), and long skirts with slits, worn with the boots. Twinsets are still around. Cardigans over everything. The overall vibe: grown-up, ladylike, a little bit 1960s secretary. Which is wonderful news for the thrifter, because every thrift store is 40% 1960s secretary.

best finds of 1999 (so far) 1. The camel coat. 100% camel hair, made in the 1960s by the label in the lining, fully lined, three-quarter length, one button missing. $22 at the suburban thrift in April, plus $12 to replace all the buttons with horn ones and $10 to fix the lining. Total: $44. I will be buried in this coat. 2. Black cashmere cardigan. Rummage sale, church basement, $3. Three dollars. There was a tiny hole at the hem which I darned myself watching The X-Files. 3. Men's gray flannel trousers. $4, tapered and hemmed for $18. See "gray" above. I wear them with the cardigan and the boots and look like I have a trust fund. 4. 1970s brown leather knee boots. $8, $28 for new heels and soles at the cobbler by the train. Chunky heel. Exactly what's in the magazines right now, 24 years early. 5. A silk blouse, cream, with a tie neck. $5. Very 1960s secretary. Under the cardigan or under a blazer. Dry cleaning costs more than the blouse did. 6. Black wool pencil skirt, $6, hemmed to the knee for $12. The one that started the whole tailoring conversation. 7. A red wool challis shawl with fringe, $4, which I am calling my pashmina and you can't stop me. 8. Levi's, dark, perfectly broken in, my size, $7. This is like finding a unicorn. I bought them without trying them on because the woman behind me was staring at them. 9. A leather blazer, black, 1980s, slightly too big in the shoulders. $14. See what I said about shoulders. I bought it anyway. I wear it anyway. Rules are for other people's jackets. Total spent on the above, including tailoring: about $190. Retail, a similar wardrobe would run well over a thousand dollars, and it wouldn't fit as well. Worst find of 1999: a 1980s sequined jacket I paid $9 for at 10 p.m. on a Friday, which is not a time to make decisions. It lives in the back of the closet and will go to a Halloween party or back to the thrift store, whichever comes first.

photos I know, I know. A fashion page with no pictures. My roommate has a camera and has promised to lend it to me "this weekend" for the last four weekends, and the copy shop by the bookstore will scan prints for a dollar each. When the roommate delivers and the drugstore develops, there will be pictures of the coat, the boots, and possibly the sequined jacket as a warning. Until then, use your imagination. I look great. photo gallery coming soon, honestly

elsewhere on GeoCities.us • Second Glance Consignment Boutique: consignment is the thrift store's fancier cousin. Higher prices, but they've done the seam-checking for you, and the page explains how it works. • Sew What? Beginner Sewing: if you'd rather do your own hems. Lorraine is the 4-H sewing lady and she is very patient, which I am not. • Vinyl Junkie: same instinct, different rack. Record collectors and thrifters are the same species. • Fashion Avenue: the rest of the neighborhood.

tell me about your best find: [email protected] (i will not tell you which suburb has the good coats. some things a girl keeps to herself.) you are shopper number last updated september 23, 1999 (fall looks added; september issues returned to the shelf slightly wrinkled) © 1998-1999 nadia f.   all opinions mine, all clothes secondhand.