Thrifting has had a big surge in popularity in the 5 years since I have, myself, gotten back into it. This makes me happy because it is, on the whole, a good thing for the environment. [It’s not, of course, a cure-all, much as banning plastic bags and straws cannot be. It’s equally annoying when people overstate the environmental impact of thrifting, as when they completely dismiss it.] However, with popularity, certain misconceptions have come into play. I see them espoused frequently online (e.g. Reddit’s Female Fashion Advice) and I wanted to address them because I don’t think they help The Cause: getting more people into thrifting.

Thrifting In a Rich Neighbourhood

The “thrift store in a rich neighbourhood” (full of luxury designer goods for $1, natch) is a phrase that gets thrown around so much on FFA that it should be its own drinking game. Now, in all fairness, there may be some truth to this – somewhere in the world, there may be a town with rich neighbourhoods with magical thrift stores overflowing with Chanel and Hermes. But that has not been my experience.

Thrifting is heavily location-specific, but in the sense that each town has its own thrift scene and you cannot generalize. I’ve done a fair bit of thrifting in places like Calgary, Red Deer and Vancouver, but I would not consider myself a thrift store expert anywhere except Edmonton, my home town. And that “expertise”, if you will, has taken years to develop. Telling someone who has never been thrifting before to find a thrift store in a rich neighbourhood is setting them up for frustration and likely failure.

Let’s talk a bit about Edmonton, because it will help illustrate my point. I often get comments on IG and the blog marveling at my thrift scores; I have myself pondered what makes Edmonton such a great place to thrift. I don’t have a definitive answer, but I have some theories.

First and foremost, I think it’s the right size. Our population (including the surrounding areas) is somewhere around 1 million, which make it large enough to sustain a diverse socio-economic cohort. Edmonton flies under a lot of people’s radar because of its reputation – in comparison with, say, Calgary, it’s considered a more blue-collar town. But it’s actually very diverse; there is a large student body (thanks to the University of Alberta, which is a well-ranked one in Canada), a large contingent of government workers, and (perhaps surprising to some) a not inconsiderable number of very wealthy people. The latter include both professionals – the U of A hospital attracts a lot of highly skilled surgeons and doctors, for example – and people with massive family wealth. Unlike perhaps in other places, these folks are VERY inconspicuous, at least for the average person. You occasionally see traces of them – you spot a Maserati casually parked on the street, for example – but for the most part, they’re not visible here in the same way as, say, Vancouver.

Second, with increased accessibility to online shopping for Canadians, any shortcomings in our local retail scene are becoming irrelevant. I routinely see lots of brands in thrift and consignment stores that are not locally available. In fact, I think online shopping directly contributes to the quality of our thrifting; based on the number of pieces I find new with tags, I think a good chunk of donations are the result of buying sale items, finding they don’t fit, and either missing the return window or not wanting to bother.

Lastly, there aren’t as many options for reselling locally (and making a decent buck) as there are in other places, particular the US. Selling on platforms like Kijiji or Facebook is a crapshoot, and it’s also highly label-dependent. (Lululemons are going to sell better than a more obscure high-end designer). There are a few consignment stores, but for the most part, you don’t make a ton of money back as a consignor; the return on designer clothes, in particular, is usually less than 20% (after accounting for the sale price and the store’s cut of the proceeds). Poshmark is still not available here (though it’s coming, I hear) and eBay can be a hassle. More importantly, shipping costs in Canada are ridiculously high, which puts a huge damper on online reselling.

So those are some of the reasons why I think Edmonton has a good thrift scene. You would have to consider how these factors might play out in your own geographic location, in addition to any other regional considerations that might impact people’s (retail) shopping habits (which, in turn, will largely dictate the thrift experience).

Now, about those mythical “thrift stores in rich neighbourhoods”. Edmonton is a patchwork of neighbourhoods, with “rich” ones sometimes directly adjacent to “sketchy” ones. My favourite thrift stores are often in commercial/industrial areas that are not in immediate proximity to any residential neighbourhoods. I know that my friend Jen (Life Preloved), for example, loves the Value Village by NAIT even though it’s, hands-down, the sketchiest store I’ve ever visited – it has its own security guard. Honestly, the only way to figure out which thrift stores are worthwhile is to visit them … and more than once. Then you can decide which you like best, which for me includes a consideration of how convenient they are to get to. Because as I said before, and will repeat ad nauseam, the more you can go, the better luck you’ll have.

The Time Commitment

There is no way of getting around this: thrifting is time-intensive, and don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise. The caveat I will add on that is this: it also kinda depends on your expectations. If you judge thrifting success based on (a) finding super high end designer stuff, or (b) finding some really specific item, then yeah, thrifting requires a big time investment. The chances that you will walk into a store once every six months and find a pair of Manolo Blahniks or a Burberry coat are slim; it could happen, but it’s unlikely. Those things get donated, but obviously not in huge quantities, and thrift stores see a LOT of customers on any given day; their merchandise turns over way faster than a regular store. That means that things (especially nice ones) sell quickly, and also that new things come out on the floor constantly. Similarly, while selection is large, if you’re looking for something specific and are very picky, you may not find it on the first try.

On the other hand, I could probably walk anyone into any store at any time, and find a decent range of mall brands (think BR, Loft, J. Crew, American Eagle, Tommy Hilfiger, etc.) without much effort. It will still take time to sift through the racks – that much is unavoidable – but you don’t need to invest repeated visits over a long period of time.

Another caveat: it’s a slightly different story if you are plus size. It’s much harder to find designer pieces – in my opinion, largely because few higher end designers offer plus size options to begin with. So, in my experience, thrift selection for plus sizes reflects what the retail market has to offer – a lot of ugly muumuus, and some cute mall brands (Torrid, Lane Bryant, Modcloth, etc.).

The Cost

This is another know-your-scene situation. Small thrift stores tend to have the lowest prices but, at least in Edmonton, much less exciting selection (when it comes to clothes, anyway). My local Goodwills have standard pricing – typically under $10 per item – with a separate “boutique” section that is individually priced. Value Village is the worst when it comes to pricing, particularly since they’ve been bought out by Walmart, but also tend to get some of the best donations in town. Most dresses at VV, for example, are now $13 and up; many of the better known mall brands are over $20. For someone like me, who shops largely for designer stuff, these prices are still (mostly) acceptable. But you cannot expect to walk into a thrift store with $20 and come out with a bag of clothing. Sorry, Macklemore.

This brings up an interesting point that my BFF and I have often discussed which is that many of the larger chain thrift stores don’t really cater to the underprivileged, at least not as customers. When you can buy a cute dress at Old Navy for $15 or less on sale, why spend $20 on a used BR Factory dress at Value Village? [The quality is pretty much the same.]

Related to the above, I find online debate around the ethics of thrift shopping by non-low income people really baffling. It is an established fact that thrift stores, in general, receive way more donations than they can sell. This is most certainly true, in my experience, for stores in larger cities like Edmonton. [It may not apply in small towns, especially for thrift stores run by churches or small local non-profits.] Based on pricing, a lot of these stores are not catering to low-income customers; they’re in it to make money, whether for their parent corporation (ahem, VV) or for their actual charitable operations (Goodwill). They don’t care who buys their goods, and there are tons of goods to go around, including brand names along the entire spectrum.

Re-Selling

And since we are on this tangent, a few words on re-selling. I know a lot of people have qualms about arbitrage, and I get it. It can appear like a way of making money for nothing – buy a thing for $5 at the thrift store, flip for $100, ka-chingg! Here’s the truth: it’s a risky business that requires a lot of skill. Nobody, anywhere, is making money for nothing. That’s not how markets work. Resellers offer convenience for people who don’t want to spend time shopping for bargains; their end customer is paying a premium for the value of the time saved, and the discount obtained. But to deliver that, resellers need to know what clothes are worth buying (recognizing name brands, quality, popular trends), and what will sell. Not everything does, and certainly not for enough money to allow for any profit. They need to put in a lot of time: sourcing the goods and preparing them for sale (cleaning, photographing, listing, and that’s not including any time or costs associated with a storefront, for example). They also need to invest their own money in buying the inventory, and there is never a guarantee that it will all sell for a profit. [I find that non-business people often discount the opportunity cost associated with sinking cash into inventory. A thousand dollars in the bank has a different value than $1000 sitting in your basement in the form of used clothing.]

I follow a few big-time resellers on IG, so I know that it can definitely be a viable and lucrative business. Having done a bit of re-selling on the side, I can tell you that it’s not a particular easy way to make money … not a lot of it anyway. I can only assume that, to make a living out of it, you’d have to commit the same amount of time as any regular 9-5 job.

That’s it for now, but if you guys have any thrift-related questions – ask away in the comments!

It’s been a while since I did one of these posts, and I’m having a hard time even remembering what I read in the last few months. Blame that on my memory, not the books themselves being bad (or unmemorable). With that being said, let’s give this a try:

– Tana French, The Witch Elm. I was so excited about this one, but it was a disappointment. Like Lethal White, it’s another humongous book, but unlike the former, it was boring as hell. It took more than a third of the book to get to the actual murder mystery, and the thing itself wasn’t nearly as compelling as it needed to be to justify the rest. For me, it all came down to the fact that the protagonist was fundamentally uninteresting. Maybe that was the point; an average, privileged white dude thinking his internal monologue was interesting enough to justify hundreds of pages of blather, but if so, the author could have conveyed that in that some other fashion. It was a slog, and the unreliable narrator bit didn’t add anything to the mix. Also, the last few chapters just … boggled the mind. To say that they came out of left field is an understatement. Maybe I missed the whole point of the book; honestly, I have no idea. I didn’t actively hate this book in the same way as that Ruth Ware one I read last year, but it was close and it was probably my affection for other novels of Tana French that stopped me from chucking The Witch Elm.

– Shirley Jackson, The House on Haunted Hill. I ordered a collection of Jackson’s short stories and novellas, and this was the first one I wanted to read (after watching the Netflix series). I liked it a lot – Jackson’s writing is fantastic – but somehow I never managed to get around to the other stories. It’s on my To Read list.

– Grace Coddington, Grace: A Memoir. Got this after finally watching The September Issue on Netflix. On the page, Grace is the same as on the screen: frank, funny, and not afraid to spill insider gossip. This wasn’t a “meaty” book, but I enjoyed it tremendously.

– Josephine Tey, The Singing Sands. I love Golden Age mystery writers, and am trying to branch out from the usual suspects (no pun intended). I had previously read and enjoyed Tey’s Brat Farrar, so I decided to pick this up. It was fine but not, well, particularly memorable to me. I probably should have chosen Daughter of Time instead.

– Maureen Callahan, Champagne Supernova: Kate Moss, Marc Jacobs, Alexander McQueen, and the ’90s Renegades Who Remade Fashion. I found this at Winners of all places, and it was a super fun, juicy read. And a walk down nostalgia lane, especially for late 90s British celebrity gossip (the Primrose Hill set anyone?).

– Dorothy L. Sayers. In The Teeth of Evidence. I found a new edition of Sayers’ entire collection at Value Village and almost bought all dozen or so volumes. Eventually, I limited myself to only 5 or 6, mostly her short stories collections. I like Sayers, but not as much as some of her fellow Hall of Fame mystery writers, and I prefer Lord Peter in smaller doses. Her short stories are top notch, though, so I really enjoyed this collection (and am looking forward to reading the others).

– Martin Edwards (ed.), Resorting to Murder: Holiday Mysteries. On Amazon, I randomly came across this British Library Crime Classics imprint, which is re-publishing lesser known (British) mysteries from the Golden Age, and was immediately intrigued. I started by ordering a few short story collections, including this one. It features a selection of about 14 or so stories, none of them being ones I’d read before – which is no small feat, because I have already read most of the well known stories that typically get featured in this type of collection. As is usually the case, this was a mixed bag – some stories were better than others – but overall quite entertaining. Mystery novels are my favourite form of literary escapism, so I am thrilled to have found a promising new vein of material to tap with these British Library Crime Classics.

Your turn – tell me what you’ve been reading lately. And thank you to all who left suggestions on my last post; while I might not immediately jump onto those recommendations, they are all filed away for future reference. [Though, I will confess that, when under stress, I tend to read mostly “fluff” as evidenced by the list above.]

Headmistress Chic

I really loved this outfit. It doesn’t scream “look at me”, but I find it to be lovely and chic in its own way. It helps that it features a few of my current fave pieces, like this Theory belted blazer and the Johan (?) skirt from Artizia (both thrifted, natch). The shirt is old, and it’s a piece that’s fallen out of and risen in favour with me several times in the years since I purchased it. I’m glad I held on to it because it works very well with my current aesthetic; I’m actually sad that I got rid of the white version a while back. [In my defence, white tops are a challenge for this clumsy klutz. It’s always a minor miracle when I don’t spill something on myself as soon as I wear white, and the stress just gets to me.] Speaking of the shirt, here are a few past outfits:

Casual Thursday

Here, I’m repeating a combo I first tried at the thrift store when I bought this Zara blazer. I was wearing the same olive AllSaints sweater (a men’s, and just about the warmest article of clothing I own) and some black jeans (not these Mother chinos, but close enough), and I loved how those colours worked with the dark brown of the blazer. For this office version, I added metallic loafers because … well, actually, they don’t need any justification. They’re simply awesome.

This kind of menswear-inspired look is becoming a big favourite of mine, to the point that I would happily wear some version of this (mixing up the sweaters and blazers from time to time) any time I’m going for a polished-casual vibe. Is that a blogger faux pas? If so, it wouldn’t be my first.

Mermaid Inspired

here’s the story with this H&M skirt: I thrifted it last year because, hello, it is perfection. I am a magpie at heart, sartorial evolutions notwithstanding. I love anything iridescent, and the hues here – ranging from green to blue to purple – are my favourites. Moreover, it was in perfect condition; no missing sequins, no unraveling seams. But! There was a but … or, more precisely, a butt. My butt. It didn’t quite fit into the skirt.

I could do up the zipper, but was also probably 5-7 pounds away from fitting in comfortably. I couldn’t even think about sitting down, lest I sent a shower of sequins flying in every direction. Now, normally, I don’t buy clothes that are too small, even a little bit. Not worth it; I have no plans to lose weight. But … ahh, it was such a nice skirt, and I thought “but what if it just happens that I lose a few pounds, without trying, oh what if?”

Spoiler alert: did not happen.

The skirt just sat in my closet. And then one day I decided enough was enough. I tried it on again, and realized that the problem was the lining; the actual sequins are sewn onto a mesh that has some give to it and could accommodate my hips and behind. If I were more skilled, I would have tackled this problem myself, but instead I took it to a tailor. For $20, she let out the sides of the lining. And, voila, it fits!

And so concludes this story time.