Thrift Happens

Growing up my favorite place to shop was what I like to call “My Sisters Closet”. My sister Brigitta is seven years older than me, and I remember heavily anticipating the days where she would bring me bags of her old clothes. The trash bags were always filled to the brim of outfits I could picture her wearing, and now I got to wear them. Hand-me-downs were my favorite thing to wear all of middle school, and maybe even still to this day. Free is also always best.

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I have been paying for my clothes since my junior year of high school, so I know how to truly shop on a budget. At home, which is outside of Philadelphia, my go-to places to clothes shop are T.J.Maxx, Marshalls, Ross, and Old Navy. Only shopping at these stores had slightly bread a pretty mundane closet for me. I would not say I have a particularly good sense of style, but I have been searching for a more unique way to express myself with clothes. I call it the art teacher look. I wear a lot of jewelry and headbands. I can find a lot of solid articles of clothing at all of those stores above, however, I have been wanting more stand out pieces lately. To solve this issue I have been tossing around the idea of thrifting.

I have never really thrifted extensively, but I enjoy consignment stores. So after doing some research and talking to friends who I know like to thrift, I decided to venture out of Oakland to the South Side which is apparently the hub for thrifting in Pittsburgh. The South Side has, all on E Carson Street, Salvation Army, Buffalo Exchange, Three Rivers Vintage, Highway Robbery Vintage, and Good Will. Imagine all the crazy places some of those clothes have been, and the stories they would tell if they could talk.

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I was not able to make it to all of these whimsical stores with no set inventory, but I went to Good Will to attempt to improve my wardrobe. First impressions were not strong, they had a huge amount of clothes and a pretty poor attempt at organizing them, but once I got into it, I could not stop. I went through the jeans and found so many different washes and styles that I was simply intrigued, and all under seven dollars. I went to retrieve a shopping cart for all these new, old, clothes and that is true when I did not look back. I pulled so many random styles, from stripes to corduroys. Then on my way to the dressing room, I stopped by the men's t-shirts and had such a fun time just guessing what man wore these crazy tees before they hung on these racks. They were all so colorful and comical, and only a select few were offensive.

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My haul that day included: a leather skirt, bootleg light-washed jeans, an old-time eagles t-shirt, and a sweater. It was all under thirty dollars. I would recommend thirsting to anyone and everyone. No pressure to buy anything, but you never know if you, if you never try. Go out and explore the different clothing options, you might really enjoy some pants that were once worn by a scholar in his youth on his fabulous trip to Paris in 1987, where he romantically fell in love with his wife over wine and cheese.