Thrifting Tips (Part 3 of 3)

Final Installment on Thrifting Tips:

When entering a thrift store, don’t get overwhelmed and start wandering around aimlessly. Grab a cart, home in on a section (e.g., skirts) and dive right in.

Look over the entire rack, pulling out anything that looks immediately interesting, then shove all of the hangers as far over as they can go and start flipping through the skirts one by one. This gives you much-needed space on jammed thrift-store racks. Look through everything. Throw absolutely anything that looks approximately right for you (in terms of shape, cut, size, color) into your cart and forget about it. Have one big try-on session at the end with all the stuff you piled into the cart. It’s cute? You’ll wear it for sure? It’s $1.80? Buy it. It’s kiiiinda cute? You’re not sure what you’ll wear it with? It’s $8? Don’t buy it. Are you really going to wear that? No matter how cool something is, do NOT buy it if it “needs some work” and you’re not actually going to fix it up.

 Look through all the sections. The bedding department often holds other linens, like adorable vintage aprons. The man-sweater section is a treasure trove of giant cashmere sweaters that women have given their husbands and their husbands have refused to wear.

The kids’ section has hoodies and T-shirts, the sleepwear section has vintage slips, and men’s shoe section have great cowboy boots hidden among all the loafers. The underwear section has silk camisoles from the ’40s, the furniture section has awesome ’60s luggage sets, and the books have best-sellers you’ve been meaning to read and weird teen-girl novels from the ’50s. Look up high and down low—the best stuff is hiding out of eye range…sometimes hidden by other sneaky thrifters in the hopes that no one else will find it before they return. Lastly - the smaller the town, the more likely you are to make out like a bandit. Have fun!