Thriftanthology

Thrifting: "When one visits several different thrift shops, second-hand shops, and vintage clothing stores in the hopes of buying several items of cheap and unusual clothing and other items. One usually does this with friends." (ref: Urban Dictionary) Sharing our thrifted finds, funny/tragic stories from the shops, and thoughts on thrifting culture. Submissions are open to all; come join the fun!

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Thriftanthology: Perambulates Over To WordPress!

Dearest readers! I do hope that this message finds you all wonderfully well! Today in news (not actual, important news, but Thriftanthology news--a very definite difference, I am aware), I am migrating this here blog over to WordPress! From here on out, you can find my a Thrifting Ramblings over at Thriftanthology.wordpress.com. (And of course, the archive of my previous thrifting ramblings will remain here, as long as the Internet endures, and this world of ours endures.) Thanks ever so much for reading my thrifting thoughts these past months (nay--years!)--look forward to seeing you over in the shiny, brave new world of WordPress!

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Seventeen Thoughts on: The Mad Fleur-de-Lis Vest 1) Question: are sweater vests like the Mafia? In that—just when you think you’re out—they pull you back in? 2) I do not know. 3) But I think it very likely. 4) I wore a LOT of sweater vests when I was a lass, back in the 1990s. 5) I was VERY cool. 6) By which I mean—I was not cool at all. 7) But I was a chilly bird, and chilly birds do benefit from wearing warm, toasty sweater vests in the autumn. And in the winter. And (let us confess it freely) sometimes even in the spring. 8) I used to wear sweater vests a LOT, you guys. 9) Did they look good on me? Oh, no. Of course they didn’t. They made me look like the villainous, preppy antagonist in one of the less respected John Hughes movies. 10) But still, I wore them. Until I went to college and… I don’t know. Got warmer? Got more anxious about looking dorky? Who can say? But for a time, sweater vests and I—we amicably but definitively parted ways. 11) Only to be reunited now, when it is the 2010s, and sweater vests are less fashionable than ever (I think? But then, what the heck do I know.) 12) I had no desire whatsoever to redip my toes into those turbulent Sweater Vest Waters—until I saw this beauty. 13) Because it is covered in fleurs-de-lis, and I love, love, love New Orleans. 14) Because it is covered in fleurs-de-lis, and I love, love, love St. Louis (and I live there now? In the sense of… living there? As a resident? Who… resides there? That can’t be right.) 15) (BUT IT IS.) 16) And this vest was supposed to be $10, but that particular day, they’d brought the price down to $2. 17) And just like that—to the Land of Sweater Vests I gladly returned, welcomed back just as though I had never left.

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Twelve Thoughts on: Virgin Impractical 1) I am not a big believer in astrology. I am a Virgo, you see, and Virgos are supposed to be meticulously (nay, even obsessively) well-organized, and tidy, and precise, in both their homes and their habits. 2) HA. No one bothered to tell my desk, or my closet, or my million other untidy surfaces and interiors that I am a Virgo, I suppose. 3) But on the other hand. Virgos are supposed to be tremendously big fans of words. (Guilty.) They are supposed to be much more on the practical than on the romantic side of the spectrum. (Double guilty.) They are supposed to have an ugly tendency towards being very critical, both of themselves and of other people. (Triple guilty.) 4) Ugh. Maybe I am a big believer in astrology, after all. 5) But then again. Virgos are also supposed to be tight-fisted and clear-eyed, when it comes to their spending patterns. (Sadly—not at all guilty.) I am very un-Virgo-like, in that I am very easily seduced by pretty, flimsy things, which will bring me great joy for the day, but which will also fall to pieces within the week. Very un-sensible. 6) Very un-Virgo. 7) Take this sheer, floral madness, for example. This thing is going to get WRECKED. By me, I mean. (I do not think anyone else has designs on trashing the lovely thing.) Its mesh is so soft and pretty… and readily tearable. Its closure is so fragile and delicate… and destroyable. I give this beauty… two wears? Maybe three, if I am lucky? 8) Very unwise, then, to have purchased it at all. I should have invested in a solid, sturdy sweater instead. Or maybe in some staunch, practical shoes. Or in like… a raincoat, or something. 9) But I did not. Indeed, I could not. I was quite literally incapable of leaving this wonder behind. 10) So I defy you, zodiac. Look into my Thrifting Heart, and see if you find one flicker of Virgin Practicality dwelling therein. 11) Go on. 12) I dare you.

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Thirteen Thoughts on: I Did Not Buy Them Because: Cruel, Cruel Heels Edition 1) Thrifting, like so many other endeavors in life, contains within itself significant potential for heartbreak. 2) To clarify, not, like, HEARTBREAK heartbreak. Thrifting will never land you crying on your bathroom floor, if you do it right. 3) (And please—do do it right.) 4) Thrifting is incapable of delivering a gut wound which will leave you bleeding for months. 5) The dear Thrifting Gods—they are far too benevolent, for that. 6) But danged if they cannot deliver one heck of a paper cut—something inherently small and trivial, but which stings like the dickens, nonetheless. 7) Case in point: these shoes. SO beautiful. SO unusual. SO exactly what I want for the work year ahead. Professional yet also kind of inappropriate—buttoned-up and feminine, yet also kind of flashy and strange. 8) PERFECT. 9) But wouldn’t you know it, they are a clean size too big for me. 10) I tried them on, and hoped that they ran smaller than they claimed. 11) I tried them on, and hoped that my feet were larger than I’d thought. 12) I tried them on, and once again, I knew what it was, to feel heartbreak. 13) These shoes didn’t make me bleed, but danged if they didn’t break the skin.

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Sixteen Thoughts on: I Did Not Buy It Because: The Terrrrrible Jumpsuit Edition 1) I have wanted a jumpsuit for, like, ever. 2) (Actual time: a year or two.) 3) (But danged if it does not feel like forever.) 4) Each and every time I have gone to Goodwill for the past handful of months, I have approached the dress section with great hope. Perhaps today will be the day when said dress section contains a delightful, jumpsuit secret! Perhaps that long sundress is actually a long jumpsuit! Perhaps those droopy overalls are really a droopy jumpsuit! 5) Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. 6) But—not yet. 7) And then—the great day arrives. The dress section DOES contain a delightful jumpsuit secret! And what you thought was a boring-patterned dress is actually a boring-patterned jumpsuit! 8) Which makes it, of course, not boring, at all. 9) But the devil of it is that one dwells inside a stubbornly material form (isn’t that so often the bummer to end all bummers?) And one’s stubbornly material form Will Not Have this jumpsuit. 10) Placed on one’s material body, the crotch is completely wonkus, the torso weirdly long, the legs excessively short. 11) I love this jumpsuit. 12) But alas. 13) It does not love me back. 14) Pity. 15) And so, once again, one has to trust. Has to throw this rare and precious jumpsuit fish back into the broad, forever-churning Goodwill Sea. 16) And hope for a better catch tomorrow.

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Twelve Thoughts on: I Did Not Buy It Because: Shimmery Fish Net Cape Edition 1) Did I really let a shimmery cape which resembles nothing so much as a sparkly disco fishing net... slip through my net? 2) It would seem that I did. 3) Pity. 4) And yet, sometimes, practicality sadly trumps one’s desire to always purchase garments which are charmingly, unrelentingly bizarre. 5) Because, charming as it is, this sucker is also HEAVY (belying its look of lightness.) 6) And this beauty also makes some serious noise. One clanks when wearing it, as though one was garbed in medieval armor. 7) Not to say that medieval armor isn’t great. (And that, in context, it wasn’t tremendously sensible.) 8) But even its most ardent defenders cannot claim that it would make for good daily wear. 9) And speaking of which: where WOULD I wear this lovely, exactly? Either daily, or in any other way? 10) I… cannot think of a single place, or occasion. 11) Which is more of an indictment of my life than it is of this garment, I am very well aware. 12) But still. Back into the thrifting sea with you, you beautiful tropical fish. May the person who purchases you truly deserve you, and be as delightfully, gloriously weird as you.

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Eleven Thoughts on: I Did Not Buy It Because: Fries Before Guys Edition 1) Goodness knows I love me a silly slogan T-shirt. 2) And I’ll be darned if this particular silly slogan T-shirt isn’t pretty darned cute. 3) But on the other hand—I am not 14 years old. 4) And on yet another hand—is this a sentiment with which I truly agree? 5) I mean, do not mistake me. Fries can be very wonderful. Let it never be said that I do not worship at the Altar of Grease. 6) But are fries greater than guys, really? 7) Jon Stewart is a guy, after all. 8) And he is a being far greater than any fry. 9) If this shirt said chocolate, now—that would be different. 10) I grant you, this shirt’s slogan would no longer rhyme, or scan, or be cute. 11) But danged if I would not both buy and believe it.

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Seven Thoughts on: I Did Not Buy It Because—The Stunning-Patterned Dress Edition 1) Dang it, this dress is SUCH a great, weird pattern. And such a great, weird pattern on such a cute, flippy, little sundress, to boot (and I have been running around saying how very much I want a new cute, flippy, little sundress for absolute WEEKS now. EONS in thrifting time.) 2) And I mean, it fits me okay. It… is not suffocatingly tight. It… is not excessively loose. It… fits me in a perfectly reasonable way. 3) But is it actually, you know, flattering on me? Does it not just FIT my body but also actually SUIT my body? 4) Ehhhhh. I mean, not so much. It presents no assault on my person, but neither does it do it any favors. 5) But really, should I care about such things? Am I not the woman who is always ardently defending the shapeless, lumpy weirdness of 1980s Japanese designers’ work to my students (who typically, sensibly shrug same off as hopelessly unwearable)? Am I not a fashion historian? Am I not supposed to care little for the conventionally pretty and pleasing, and much for the striking and the unusual? 6) Ehhhhh. I mean, I guess so. But sometimes a gal just wants to, you know… look purty? And perhaps that it is a basic desire, to possess. 7) But really. If a sundress does not fully embrace me, why should I bother to seek to embrace it?

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Thirteen Thoughts On: I Did Not Buy It Because: Bile-Colored Shirt Edition 1) Oh, how very, very long I have wished for a shirt the color of bile. 2) I have shirts the colors of oceans and blushes and clouds. And I do love them. Pretty, pleasant things, those. 3) But a bile-hued shirt? Such a wonder has, to date, entirely eluded me. 4) It is not that such shirts do not exist. As you can see above (and as you doubtless knew, already) they most certainly do. And they even make their way to dear Goodwill, sometimes. 5) And yet, we still seem to be doomed, bile shirts and I. An ill-starred pairing. Always destined to meet, and then to part. 6) And it is not because shirts in this particular hue make me look consumptively wretched. (Though, of course, they do.) I am totally down to look consumptively wretched. 7) But the devil of it is, bile-colored shirts—they tend to be boring. Boring in cut. Boring in style. Boring in fit. 8) And I just cannot have any truck with Boring, anymore. 9) Here is my theory. (Note: I have absolutely no support for said theory. But indulge me.) Bile-covered garments are already so inherently weird (that sickly color! That deathly hue!) that they make many designers nervous. They do not want to double-down on The Weird (whoever would buy something both an odd color AND an odd fit?), so when it comes to style, shape, and cut, they play it default to playing it safe. They default to boxy, plain, basic. 10) Pity. 11) Because what this does is to lock me into a cycle of always, always, always trying on bile-colored garments, and never, ever, ever finding one which is sufficiently odd enough to claim as my own. 12) But. As the thrifter’s motto goes, while I thrift, I hope. 13) And surely we must believe that Weird always triumphs over Normal, in the end?

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Twenty-Seven Thoughts On—I Did Not Buy It Because: Beige Heels Edition 1) I thought it might be interesting to start to think, on this here blog, not just about what I DO buy, when I head out into the wide, wonderful thrifting world, but also about what I do NOT buy. 2) Because more things hit the thrifting floor than go into the thrifting basket, as we all know. 3) And what we do not want says as much about us as what we do want, as we are all very much aware. 4) And so. Let us consider some of the objects which, in my thrifting wanderings, I have left behind. 5) Let us start with these shoes. Mercy. This one stung. 6) Because I really, really, really wanted these shoes, and have been seeking beige heels precisely like them for precisely EVER. (7) Give or take some hyperbolic exaggeration.) 8) And in my quest for beige heels, I have been uniformly, consistently, completely, radically unsuccessful. I have never owned such a pair of darned shoes in my whole darned life. 9) Pity. 10) My rabid desire for same is quite intriguing to me (if to no one else—and really, why would it be?), in that I deeply covet such shoes, in spite of the fact that every fashion blogger whom I honor and respect is very, very, very eye-roll-y about them. 11) Beige shoes, I mean, really. I ask you. How unimaginative. How basic. How bland. 12) That is what they say. 13) And they are not wrong. 14) But. 15) I still love them. And I still want them. Even though I want to be as imaginative and non-basic and un-bland in my fashion choices as is humanly possible. 16) But. The heart wants what it wants. 17) And. My heart wants these shoes. (18) Fickle creature, this heart of mine.) (19) As I had already surmised.) 20) The thing of it is, I have grown quite sensible (in a few small choice ways, at least), as I have settled into my Mid-30s Age. 21) And my feet (bless them for all that they do) are cranky devils, with strong opinions about darned near everything. (Not unlike their mistress.) And they will have no truck with shoes which cause them severe, sustained pain anymore, no matter how pretty those shoes may be. 22) Pity. 23) But—the feet want what the feet want. And my feet want shoes entirely unlike these shoes. My feet thought that these shoes were entirely too tight and too pinch-y and too stiff to be endured 24) And so we walked on, moving forward with our life without them. 25) Not without regret, of course. (26) We may have officially moved past the point where there will be no regrets, whatsoever.) 27) But though we may have been sad--we were certainly right.

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Five Thoughts on: Dressing Like Stevie Nicks 1) There comes a time in every woman’s life where she needs to ask herself: why am I suddenly dressing like Stevie Nicks all the time? 2) A weighty question. 3) Which lacks an easy answer. 4) Unless that answer is: 5) Because it’s awesome?

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Eight Thoughts on: Be Your Own Special Self 1) My parents SO would have bought this for me, when I was a little girl. 2) And I so would have displayed it in my childhood bedroom with great glee. 3) (Whereas now I will display it in my grown-up home with great glee. Precise placement: TBD.) 4) My parents would have bought this for me because when I was a little girl, I LOVED penguins. Like, I had a full-throttle penguin obsession. Penguin stuffed animals. Penguin books. Penguin posters. Penguin stickers. Penguin sweatshirts. Penguin socks. 5) A regular little Miss Popper, baby me. 6) But it’s not just the penguins, which would have prompted the purchase. My parents would have bought this for me because they wanted exactly this for me. They wanted me to grow up to be my own special self, whoever that happened to be, and whatever that happened to look like. 7) Which is exactly the affirmation that all children (and adults) deserve, of course. 8) But how very lucky I was, to get it.

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Twenty-Four Thoughts on: Free Can, Indeed, Be Better Than Cheap 1) I so owe the Thrifting Gods. 2) Always, I know. 3) But--especially now. 4) Especially for these. 5) Because these fell so beautifully and serendipitously into my lap, and I was (admittedly) so very greedy to allow them do so. 6) Because I have taken, and given nothing back. 7) Not optimal, in thrifting or in life, I know. 8) But--here we are. 9) I had given up all hope of thrifting this past weekend, as I was on a college campus for a conference. And most college campuses, lovely as they are, do not, alas, possess many opportunities for thrifting. 10) Emphasis being firmly placed on "most." 11) Because some, it seems, do. 12) This one, for example, did. 13) Better even than that, it had a Free Store--a place for students to bring their discarded treasures, and to acquire new treasures, entirely free of charge. 14) I (platonically) love college students, and their ingenuity and generosity, sometimes. 15) I did not intend to take anything away with me when I went in there, I swear. 16) I just meant to look around, admire student creativity and inventiveness, and leave. 17) And then, I saw these boots. 18) And then, I tried them on. 19) And then, I lost my heart. 20) And then, they were in my purse. 21) I tried to find something to leave behind for the Thrifting Gods, I swear that I did. I contemplated leaving one of my rings (but I love all of my rings.) I thought about leaving my old boots (but I love my old boots.) 22) So I walked out with something added, and nothing taken away. 23) I walked out having spent nothing, but very much in debt. 24) A debt which I will repay, I vow--we take our (admittedly tremendous) debts to the Universe generally, and to the Thrifting Gods specifically, very seriously, my beautiful new red boots and I.

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Nineteen Thoughts on: New Homes, Old Stuff 1) I had no idea when I listed my unwanted furniture on Craigslist, that it would be, you know, actually FUN. 2) I hoped for (and received) a small, but deeply welcome, little pile of cash, but I thought that these charming little bills would be the beginning and the end of it. 3) But it is never quite so simple when you care about stuff, is it? 4) And I do care about stuff. 5) Like, a lot. (6) As you may have gathered.) 7) And I am, of course, very far from being the only one. Loads and loads of other people also care very deeply about stuff. They weave the stuff that they own into their ideas about the lives they want to lead, and the people they want to be. 8) I love these people. 9) I am these people. 10) As such, I was so, so happy that I got to sell several items of furniture to just such people, and to learn more about the lives that my chairs and shelves were about to lead, without me. 11) Buyer the First. A young man (was he in high school? College? I have been a professor forever, and I still find it hard to tell, sometimes), who told me that he planned to use my discarded chairs for his library. (Because of course, this young man had a library.) 12) “Libraries need chairs which are comfortable, but not TOO comfortable,” he told me. “They have to make you want to read, but not to nap. My current library chair—that thing is a nap chair. But these chairs—these chairs are library chairs.” 13) Buyer the Second. A woman who came to pick up one of my bigger chairs, with a friend along to help. She saw it, and stopped dead. 14) "I can already see this chair by my hearth,” she told me. “This is going to be a chair for my friends. My friends will sit in this chair, and we will laugh and talk and drink by the fire, on nights when it is too cold to go out, but on which they’ve come out anyway, to come be with me, and my fire, and this chair.” 15) Buyer the Third. A man with a very large truck, picking up my delicate little white shelf (which in no way, shape, or form required a truck, very large or otherwise.) 16) "I want this for my wife’s craft room,” he told me. “She quilts. She doesn’t know that I’m here, or that I’m getting this. But she and her quilts—they always need more room. I want to give them more room.” 17) Buyer the Fourth. A young woman who had just bought (what she hoped) would be her forever home, after years of unhappily moving every eighteen months. 18) "These chairs—they are even prettier than they were in the pictures," she told me. "These chairs are SOLID. I am going to put them on my porch, and they are going to stay there. We are going to stay there.” 19) Danged if loving stuff doesn’t really make me love people, sometimes.

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Sixteen Thoughts: On Letting Go, Rather Than Letting In (Part 1) 1) So in just over a month, I am moving out of the apartment and the town where I have lived for five years, and into a new apartment which I hardly know (but already love), and a new city which I already love (but sense that I have the capacity to come to love more still.) 2) Eep. 3) And with moving, comes packing up the things that you love, to carry with you, when you go. 4) And with moving, comes leaving behind the things you have no earthly desire to give houseroom to, any longer. 5) Moving is building, but it is destroying, too. 6) Now, I have not moved too terribly much, in my life, but when I have, I have found it enormously clarifying. Which objects do I truly love, and which objects am I all too delighted to leave behind? 7) Moving will tell me in no uncertain terms, I have discovered. 8) This one chair, for example, is a weighty monster, which it was an absolute nightmare to haul into my current apartment, and will be an unmitigated disaster to seek to haul into my new one (using a back and arms now five years older.) 9) But--I love it. And so—we will find a way, somehow. 10) This other chair, by contrast, is such a light, sensible one, which I could use in so many rooms in my new house. I will need an extra chair for my new kitchen, surely? It would make a logical chair to stick in the corner of my new office, I imagine? 11) But—eh. I look at it, and my heart shrugs. 12) And so—off with you, then. 13) And so, staring down a room full of furniture which had served me long and faithfully, but which I in no way anymore loved or cared for, I did what any tight-purse-stringed lass who was about to move would do. 14) I listed it all on Craigslist, pitching for as much as I thought I could ethically get for the stuff. 15) And then, the buyers started to show up. 16) And then, things started to get interesting.

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Eighteen Thoughts on: Pearls, Real and Fake 1) Neither of my grandmothers was much of one for pearls. 2) They both wore them, of course--I think pearl-wearing was mandatory, in the '50s? 3) I think that’s how that worked, anyway. 4) I might have to check on that. 5) Anyway. I inherited one of my grandmother’s actual, real strands of actual, real pearls. And they are long and sleek and lovely—very much reminiscent of the flapper that my grandmother might not have been, herself, but whom the kinds of flappers that she certainly watched, as a movie-going girl in the 1920s—those bright, shocking, vivid figures, laughing down at her from the silver screen. 6) Perhaps she twisted her pearl necklace around her finger and dreamed, as she watched them. 7) Perhaps she never wore her pearl necklace in public, at all, because her mom had bought it for her, and she thought that it was stuffy, and dull. 8) I never had the chance to meet her, or to ask. 9) I love the pearl necklace, that my grandmother once wore (or at least—that she owned.) I even wear it myself, sometimes. 10) But I cannot say that it feels quite natural or right, on me. I feel very much conscious and aware that I am playing dress-up, whenever I wear it. 11) That I am a woman not suited to pearls, uneasily seeking to become suited. 12) I am so much more comfortable wearing pearls that are fake. In college, I had a massive fake pearl ring. In grad school, I had a huge fake pearl choker. I loved them both, wore them until they both quite literally fell apart, and never once felt uncomfortable, or unnatural in them. 13) Delightful things in that way, fake pearls. 14) Small wonder, then, that I should have been drawn to this delightful shirt. The pearls on them are so darned cheap, and look so darned fake. 15) And heaven bless them, for that. 16) This shirt, altogether, is almost too much, in its approximation of 1950s fussy, proper femininity. The elaborate pearl color. The hyper-nipped-in waist. The exaggerated, feminine flare. So over-the-top girly and decorous that it almost feels like a parody of itself. 17) Maybe my grandmothers felt the same way, when they donned the prissy bright pinknesses which they, as women of the 1950s, were encouraged, by both fashion and custom, to wear. 18) Perhaps the unease which I feel with the hyperfeminine decorousness of pearls is inherited--is not just mine, but also theirs.

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Twelve Thoughts on: The Pale Pale Pale Jeans 1) When I was a teenager, dark denim was IT. 2) Boot cut, dark denim, the end. 3) Pale denim signified the 1980s, and the 1980s signified all things that were The Worst. Even though we had all born then. Even though this was the decade which had brought us neon, and scrunchies, and violently-colored socks, and all other such bright, cheery delights. 4) We were children of the ‘90s, and as such were duty-bound to reject pale denim, and all things which even WHISPERED of the ‘80s. The ‘80s was not our decade, and as such were The. Darned. Worst. Period, the end. No exceptions allowed. 5) Not even for pale denim. 6) Boo. 7) Pity that I always loved it. Pity that I always enjoyed how bleached and severe and pallid it was. Dark denim was fashionable, and, as an unoriginal, conformist teenager, dark denim I thus had to wear. 8) Sigh. 9) I love dark denim now (so severe and sharp and somber it is, bless it), but there is still a great deal of room left in my heart for denim which is as pale and faded as my own pallid self. So California and beachy and chill, this “so-pale-as-to-almost-be-white” shade of blue. 10) So much against the aesthetic which I usually aspire to, and the things which I usually love. 11) But one of the joys of no longer being an unoriginal, conformist teenager (having traded that in for being a marginally-more original and marginally-less conformist thirtysomething) is that there can be room in one’s life for more than one thing, at a time. Room for what is fashionable, and what is not. Room for what is light, and what is dark. 12) Room for things which would have appalled the teenage girl I once was, and room for the things which would have delighted her.