I have a lot of friends who love to shop in
thrift stores, but I’ve scarcely gone into one in my entire life. I’m taking a
class in The Artist’s Way and one of the activities we are required to do is to
go on an Artist’s Date—doing something different by yourself that encourages
looking at the world in a new creative light.
I thought, “What the hell, I’ll see what this
thrift store thing is all about.”
Growing up, my female role models were my mother
and my Aunt Margie—both women who had been raised during the Depression in
rural Tennessee. In those poor times, women usually made, or remade, their own
clothes or had a relative who could sew. Secondhand stores probably seemed more
like charity than their pride could handle.
By the 50s, they were both living in Nashville,
Tennessee, a city with a thriving downtown shopping area. They would dress in
nice dresses, hats and gloves, take the bus or Aunt Margie’s car, and make a
day of it, usually eating lunch in the restaurant on the top floor of
Cain-Sloan, Nashville’s premier department store.
Shopping was a social event.
I loved to shop with Aunt Margie. She never made
me try anything on and always bought me an outfit that we both loved. Because
she was childless, I was often the recipient of her generosity. We had fun
together. When she ran into someone she knew (and she ALWAYS ran into someone
she knew—Nashville seemed like a small town to me then), she would stand in the
store’s aisle and chat. I would nod at the other person and dash off to play
under the racks, pulling the full skirts of party dresses across my skinny,
little-girl body.
I was a
fashion model, speaking in a posh voice. I was a society woman, smoking my
cigarette and laughing.
Through my daydreams, I’d keep an ear open for Aunt
Margie’s loud, distinctive voice. When her conversation began to flag, I would
dash out from under the dresses and appear beside her once more, innocently
reaching for her hand.
Shopping with my mother was different. She was
more practical and sat in the dressing room with me while I tried on school
clothes. There was no hiding under dress racks with her around.
“No, that one’s too fancy. Okay, that skirt will
go with a couple of blouses that you already have. No, Marsha. Don’t argue with
me. You don’t need a dress like that—you’d never wear it.”
I always ended up sweaty and pouting, anxious to
get to the Woolworth’s counter for a cheeseburger and a cherry coke. Sometimes
we’d go to the Krystal hamburger stand for their little square burgers and
French fries.
During the 50s, girls wore ‘girly’ clothes.
Jeans, or pants of any kind, were scarce. I was allowed to wear pants under my
dresses on cold morning walks to school, but it was mandatory to remove the
pants as soon as you got to the classroom.
 | |
| Guess my mom liked to wash my dresses. |
I wasn’t particularly careful with my clothes
when I was in elementary school. I would saunter home dragging my ripped sashes
behind me in the dirt, hems bedraggled. I chewed on my lace collar edgings
while I concentrated on a test, leaving them soggy and tattered. My mother
would sigh and sew everything back together, thanking God that there was only
one of me.
 |
| Marsha playing with the boys-fashionably, of course. |
In high school, clothes were important. Clothes
determined your niche in teenage society. I’m not condoning this; I’m just
stating the facts as I experienced them. We pitied our Catholic high school
friends their standardized uniforms. Ironically, we in public school dressed
every bit alike as the convent girls. We wore our nearly identical
stitched-down pleated skirts with coordinating sweater, matching knee socks and
a circle pin adorning our round-collar blouses. We girls would meet in the
hall, eyes flicking up and down, mentally comparing styles, adding up costs,
deciding if we were socially compatible. It was incentive to shop the sales
just to keep up. We were little fashionistas in training.
 |
| The uniform - and my boyfriend, Jay. |
I loved shopping. The big, bright department
stores were exciting, crowded and full of adventure. Clerks catered to your
every whim, even if you weren’t an adult. I fell in love, a little, with the
aura of being in a store. My girlfriends and I would catch the bus downtown and
wander through the stores, oohing and ahhing over the new fashions, flipping
through the record bins, and hanging over the makeup counters, trying on
lipstick that our mothers would wash off as soon as we got home.
It seems like I had always been selling
something—fireworks and Christmas trees in Mississippi, tropical plants in
Memphis, Western boots to French tourists in Wyoming—and the logical
progression led me to corporate retail. I got over the thrill of shopping when
I worked as a sales manager in a large department store in my 30s.
My love of shopping died in Casper, Wyoming.
As a sales manager, I spent seven years
merchandising clothes racks, listening to complaints of customers and employees
alike, coming to work on holidays and weekends and stressing over visits from
the corporate bigwigs. I would hear, “Let me get my manager” and I would steel
myself to smile and listen to justifications galore:
“I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“My husband says bring it back or sleep in the
garage.”
“My daughter didn’t like it.”
“It didn’t fit the same way it did in the
dressing room.”
“This went on sale the day after I bought it.
Can I have the sale price?”
I just smiled and projected dark, evil thoughts
as I cheerfully refunded their money. When I bought something that wasn’t
perfect, I thought about what a bargain it had been, and lived with it.
Of course, there was absolutely no reason to buy
anything at full price. I would always wait for a sale (and there was ALWAYS a
sale), then get my employee discount on top of the reduced price. Why buy
clothes at a thrift shop when I could get new clothes at nearly the same price.
Yes, I’m digressing. This story is about thrift
stores. Remember? Now that ‘Secondhand Chic’ is in, I thought I’d check it out
and compare it to my department store experiences.
When I got to the Salvation Army Thrift Store
parking lot, I remembered that I didn’t like their political stance on gays, so
I turned around and drove down Main Street to a place called the Re-finery, an
upscale consignment shop.
Inside, the racks were arranged in a boutique-y
way—the most desirable (newer, more fashionable, better brand names) were
placed forward on display. Larger racks of similar items were scattered through
the center and sides of the store. I gravitated to the rounder of sweaters and
knits tops and slid through the hangers in a half-hearted way. They looked so
tired, so used. No bright lights, no glamorous displays with mannequins.
Duh, Marsha. Secondhand store.
Gradually, the merchandiser in me took over and
I spied styles and colors that I liked, and that I knew looked good on me. To
my surprise, I found a Nike jacket to use on morning walks and a Coldwater
Creek pullover with a crocheted v-neck.
Okay. This could be more fun than I expected. I
saw a friend from the high school I used to work at and decided to call it a
social event. More fun. I bought my two items—total cost, about $20. Not bad,
but not great either.
Next, I went to Flathead Industries, a thrift
store that hires and helps developmentally disabled members of our community. I
have donated to this excellent non-profit organization for years, but had never
stepped a foot in the door. It was about time.
In the parking lot, I saw two friends who were
crowing about the wonderful bargains they got inside the store.
Another social event!
The clothes were arranged mostly by type and
color. Much more work was involved in finding something I liked, but the prices
were eye-poppingly cheap. I finally struck gold with an Eddie Bauer v-neck
sweater and a Jones New York pullover—each for only $4.00!
Score!
I came away from my thrift store experience with
some relief, but with an altered point of view. The total feeling was different
from the one I had in a department store, however, so in the future I’ll know
how to judge my shopping mood. Ready for a scavenger hunt? Thrift Store.
Looking for something specific? I’ll go to a more traditional department store.
I might explore more secondhand stores—I hear
that a lot more of them are in the valley. It takes patience and persistence,
but there are great deals in ‘gently used’ clothing. I know I’ll find it easier
to donate my old clothes, knowing that someone else will get satisfaction from
the ‘find’ just as I did.
 | |
| My finds of the day! |
The best part about my afternoon? I took my
fistful of savings and my novel du jour to a local restaurant and treated
myself to an hour of solitude and a good lunch, far from crowded stores of any
kind.
