Everything Old Is New Again

I started my affair with second-hand clothing when I was in high school.

My mother put me on an increased monthly allowance when I was sixteen. From that money I had to take care of my car, cover all expenses and buy all my clothes. This was intended to teach me financial responsibility. I also worked during the summers, but I was enough of a princess that my parents thought I should focus on studies during the school year and so I received a family scholarship.

My mother also taught me her shopping technique, which I use to this day: First go to the nicest stores, the boutiques, the designer shops, the Needless Mark-ups. Window shop to your heart’s content. Try everything on, even if it costs thousands of dollars. Find out what you really want. Then go to the discount stores and see if you can find something like it. Amazingly, I almost always could. Then, if there was something fancy and pricey you just HAD to HAVE — like Michelle’s much-dreamed-of Manolo Blahnik shoes — then you can splurge. One expensive accessory can make a whole outfit shine.

I went one step better and discovered the Goodwill stores. The Salvation Army stores. The vintage clothing stores. All of these bear fruit for the diligent shopper. The key again is to look for the basics, for the timeless pieces that form the foundation of your wardrobe. Then if you have to have, say the purple poet’s shirt with the 70s collar, pleated sleeves and over-sized cuffs (yes, I really had one!), then that can be a funky addition. While the Goodwill’s and Salvation Army’s require fortitude to find the jewel in the pile of kitty litter, the vintage stores require bravery and imagination.

Then I discovered consignment.

Sure, we all have been in consignment stores, where people either sell their clothing to the shop or have the shop sell it for them, less a percentage for the store. Some are better than others. I’m sharing my secret tips here:

1) Fnd the consignment stores the rich women patronize. The best consignment store I’ve ever been to was in West Palm Beach. They had GORGEOUS designer shoes with unscuffed labels on the soles. There was a Vera Wang gown that had been worn once. Many of the Glitterati Fashionistas wear something once and never again — who in that crowd wants to be seen in the same outfit twice? Whenever you’re on vacation, go to the ritzy part of town. You might not be able to afford to stay there, but you can sure as heck wander the streets. Find the consignment store. Plan to spend a few hours.

2) Know your seasons. In Colorado, the best strategy is to hit the ski town consignment stores at the end of the ski season. All those rich women with winter ski homes ditch clothes when they close up the vacation homes for the summer. After all, those are last season’s clothes now.

3) Visit the consignment stores near college campuses right after graduation. The college girls move out of the dorms and sorority houses; they have way more stuff than when they moved in: something has to go. Often it’s the fun and flirty stuff that mom won’t approve of — and will wonder how they could afford it. These are great places to find the trendy stuf. And for less than $10, you won’t care if it’s out of style in a few months.

4) Give back. Take your stuff to the local store and build up an account. Build up a friendship. My local gals know me and call me up when something from one of my favorite designers comes in. Nothing like having a mole where it counts!

5) Be proud of your second-hand clothes. This last week I had two readings and signings for an anthology I’m in: Going GreenTrue Tales from Gleaners, Scavengers, and Dumpster Divers. (Shameless Self-Promotion Alert!) In honor of our theme of unusual ways to recycle I wore all second-hand clothing to both events. People were frankly shocked that my very nice outfits were new only to me. It’s a good lesson. There are many ways to reuse. You can both save money and feel good about your contribution to the environment.

And look really cute, too. What more can you ask?

Chartreuse, anyone?

I posted on Facebook yesterday that I intended to go out and buy a new vacuum cleaner.

Yeah, in the grand scheme, it’s not interesting. But that’s what Facebook is for: daily inanity. The surprise was, as one friend commented, it became the most interesting thread on Facebook for the day. Lots of people chimed in with their favorite brands and what one really needed in a vacuum cleaner.

I bought my new labor-saving device, brought it home and completed the housework abruptly interrupted mid-carpet by the final, gasping death of the vacuum cleaner I’d been nursing along for years using, yes, duct tape. (Though I thought of it as “new,” my mother bought it for me when I started grad school, which I can’t avoid knowing was 20 years ago.) I posted a new note to Facebook that I was loving the new machine and was considering donning a frilly white apron and high heels. And I called it “lime green,” which I knew was wrong.

What I wanted to convey was the excessive fashionability of my new vacuum cleaner. In a very trendy color of green that I knew I knew the name of. My boss wears it all the time. I even Googled it, looking for synonyms for green, but couldn’t spot it. And after all, it’s only a Facebook post — who really cares if I say “lime green” or… well, I knew “chartreuse” was wrong. Ann Taylor! I thought. She’s all about this shade of green. I went to her site, entered “green” anything for a keyword to see what they called it:

Pesto. Seaweed. Pistachio.

No, really.

Is anyone else noticing a food theme here?

So, to hell with it, I posted my message about my “lime green” vacuum cleaner, not pesto, seaweed or pistachio. Then we discussed whether pearls go with sweats and no one mentioned whether my vacuum cleaner was a fashionable color or not.

Of course, I remembered it later that evening: celadon!

Which is, apparently, passe. I’m such a lousy fashionista. Celadon was probably in five years ago. But you’re talking to a woman here who thinks a 20-year-old vacuum cleaner is new. If I could wear the color celadon, I’d still have a bunch of it in my closet. I certainly wouldn’t swap it out for the more au courant seaweed, pistachio and pesto. Though, I must confess, I’d probably sneak in a few pieces of the new colors, to smarten things up.

Probably by the time this vacuum cleaner dies, 20 years from now, celadon will be in again. Or just coming into style.

I try to stay ahead of the trends.

Gloria, We Hardly Knew Ye

Is anyone else noticing the whole waist/hip thing?

By anyone, I mean the gals, because I really don’t think guys do this. So, if you’re a guy, feel free to skip today’s post.

But gals, the whole waistline-drop thing seems to be getting stranger. Never mind that we really can’t find any slacks, jeans or even skirts that fasten around our waists — and if we could, we can’t wear them because, hey, we might have to concede to being in our 40s, but we still don’t REALLY want to look like refugees from the 80s. Even if that’s exactly what we are.

My mother will testify that I’m famous for keeping clothes forever. It’s the sentimentality. Throwing away a loved outfit is tantamount to throwing away all the good times had in that outfit. So, yes, I still have some of the clothes I wore in high school. A couple of sweaters. A few party dresses from college. None of the lower-body stuff because, let’s just say, my hips did not stay teenager narrow. But I was the girl whose friend told her she was the only person she knew who looked good in designer jeans (Gloria Vanderbilt, with an embroidered gold swan on one hip pocket and a similar gold cursive “Jennifer” on the other.) The waist buttoned around the narrowest point of my body, which meant the jeans stayed there, whether I was standing or sitting.

But the dropped-waist thing — they move around all the time! Sure the slacks will drape nicely over my hips while I’m standing, sitting in their comfortable three inches below my belly button. I went to all drop-waist slacks and jeans after I had my belly-button pierced. Believe me, you have to do it. Thus do vanity piercings drive fashion. So, standing around, looking cute is fine. But when you sit, they kind of creep up and flop around your waist like an Ace bandage gone wrong. OR they slide down further, showing your thong and butt-cleavage and… no, no, no.

Okay, compared to Amazon censoring homosexual books on their website, this isn’t a big deal. Lots of people have been talking about that, though. Is anyone discussing the millions of women out there whose pants won’t stay put? A can of worms there, I say.

I’m starting to understand why older women start to wear those mu-mus.