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Underground > Art, Fashion & Design >

"Those weirdoes in their charity shop clothes"- do you, don't you and how?

All Acting Regiment

20:27 / 02.03.05

I'm always seeing cool old gear in charity shops, and I can't be the only one on Barbelith to have noticed this. Indeed, it's a tradition among us "types". It might look good on our hides, and the money goes to helping people out.

So, if you do, tell us what you get out of it, and also tell us where you go and how you judge what to buy and what to leave. What about hygeine? Would you buy things to go next to your skin? Or shoes?

Tryphena Absent

07:34 / 03.03.05

I'm afraid that I'm rubbish at charity shopping. I try, I go in and browse but I never, ever find anything that I want to buy. I suspect this is because 1)I never give clothes away so don't believe that anyone who truly liked a piece would give it up and if they didn't like it... why would I? 2)Ideally I would like to dress like an old lady. Unfortunately old ladies don't dress like old ladies, they dress horribly thus when looking for old lady clothes and that's what charity shops make me do, I find very little.

19:47 / 03.03.05

Jeans, t-shirts, pants, socks... all the basics, I have to buy from normal shops, but all the really stylish, individual stuff I've ever bought comes from charity shops. They often have stuff you just don't see in other stores. I bought a leather jacket from one when I was about 14 for £30, and I still have it now, 6 years later. My girl is just the same, she manages to find some *sharp* stuff. Brighton/Hove seems to be especially good for this kind of thing.

All Acting Regiment

19:54 / 03.03.05

That's what I'm talkin', Kapok. Leather jackets are probably one of the main cool things you see in said shops- nice and ready worn with authentic holes and maybe even patches.

Brigade du jour

22:05 / 05.03.05

Darn it I'm jealous. I'd love to buy stuff from charity shops for three principal and common reasons - 1. it's cheaper, 2. it helps the needy, 3. it sticks it to 'The Man' (in this case Gap, Moss Bros, Benetton, you name it).

However I'm a larger than avergae chap so I rarely find good stuff that fits, whinge whinge. Although I got lucky with a rather funky purple shirt in time for the Scissor Sisters gig last year so it's not all tragedy.

00:26 / 12.03.05

Charity shop things are fantastic, not in the least because no-one else ever has them on. I would, and do buy anything bar underwear (and socks) from charity shops. Half my clothes are other people's cast-offs.

I know what you mean Nina about not giving clothes away and so therefore not buying the things people don't want, but sometimes people accidentally buy really nice things that don't quite fit them, or they lose or gain weight and so they take them to the charity shop.

The trick is to go to cool areas, places where people like you live. There's no point looking for clothes in a charity shop in rural Berkshire if you're a Shoreditchy kind of person, don't look in Kensington if you have a penchant for black leather and knee high boots. I don't look in the charity shops in Salisbury, but when I go to Bath I find heaps of things.

Also, don't go to Oxfam, it's mainly 70 year old ladies with cats who donate to them. And they charge too much. From what I can garner through my visits lots of people like me appear to prefer to take their clothes to the less supported charity shops, so I go there for preference.

Madman in the ruins.

21:14 / 13.03.05

Aye.
I've brought a rather well fitting suit for £15 from a Red Cross shop, beats spending aover a ton on sometig I would only wear for Funeralls and Weddings.

good point about the location of the chirity shop. Chester has some really good ecelctic stuff but its a bit on the pricey side as the shops themselves are realising how good this donated stuff is.

02:45 / 14.03.05

The trick is to go to cool areas, places where people like you live.

And Olulabelle hits my particular c-shop problem on the head.

16:04 / 14.03.05

I do give some clothes away, but most of them seem to be waiting to be turned into cushions and bags (this is because i sometimes impulse buy stuff that I like the fabric of rather than the fit, and only wear it a couple of times.)

I never find anything in UK charity shops to fit me but have better luck in American thrift stores. But sometimes there's good fabric to be had...

Goodness Gracious Meme

17:36 / 14.03.05

I love charity shopping, and it's the only way these days I can justify buying clothes.

Time is the main factor, I think. You have to have time to dig through bins/go back to shops repeatedly in order to have a high rate of charity shop score. Most chrity shoppers I know, of whatever/no faith, have a profound belief in Charity Shop karma. You put in your time, eventually you gets yr reward.

I'm fortunate in that I live somewhere stuffed with charity shops of varying kinds. Town centre ones are more expensive, tend to have a broad range of ages/styles of people giving stuff and get picked over very quickly.

Out of town/obscure charity shops contain enormous piles of crap, but if you did also yield up joyous clothes (cloth, books, home stuff, records etc) priced at 25p!

Then there's Traid, which cherry-picks good quality/trendy retro stuff and prices accordingly.

Most recent scores, in one shop:

*a leopard print fun-fur fur coat, perfect fit: £5
*a heavy wool pinstripe suit (near-perfect fit, which never happens): £10.
* set of turquoise wine glasses (given as gift) £3

11:03 / 16.03.05

I haven't done charity shopping for a while but my hard and fast rule back when I did was to go somewhere incredibly "un-trendy" so that the other students/vintage wearing types hadn't already bought up all the cool stuff.

Random dead end seaside towns are great, people go there to die and once they're dead their wild 70's back catalogue of garments gets donated to the local Save the Children. A quick trip to Margate is worth the effort for the charity shops alone but as an added bonus you get to see archaic British society in decline for free!

Another VERY good tip is to go work in a charity shop, volunteer for a few hours a week and you get to be the one who goes through all the good stuff first.

I used to work at a charity shop instead of doing phys ed. at school (community service!) and I'd get all the best clothes first AND the lovely old ladies who also worked there would just tell me to make a 20p donation instead of actually paying for the clothes.
This was about a decade ago now so perhaps the charity shop owners are a bit mroe wise to this (especially in larger cities).

11:04 / 16.03.05

Oh I should also add that I stopped buying Charity shop clothes after the whole "retro/vintage" chic thing really took off.
I noticed that there really wasn't anything worthwhile in the shops anymore, they'd all been bought up by the dedicated market stalls and/or boutiques.

23:42 / 16.03.05

I totally go to the charity shops around here. They're great places to find clothing that you'd never be able to get at the normal retail stores.

If I ever come up against a cool piece of clothing but there's a hole or stain, I'll just sew on a patch or make a part of another piece of clothing. Sometimes I'll see some awesome jacket but the inside is pretty crummy, so I'll just put in some nice comfortable wool in there.

So not only are you getting bang for your buck, you get original fashion.

Ex

08:29 / 22.03.05

if they didn't like it... why would I?

But do you really trust anyone else's taste? Most people don't dress the way I'd want to. It makes perfect sense to me that they'd throw out items that I want.

Charity shopping takes time - ideally, you learn when the new stock goes out and have some kind of weekly rota. But it's been a while since I was that organised. I used to do ten or so every week; it takes you less time each time you check because you've already scanned the rails the previous week (and can tell the tempting snippet of brocade is actually an awful novelty waistcoat) so it's not too monumental.
Also, after a while you start to believe that you are being rewarded by a mystical force for your loyalty by precious finds that you would otherwise have missed.

You can actually anticipate garments arriving in charity shops. I saw a translucent devore top in Marks and Spencers, one year, and thought: "Slightly conservative clientele - weant something flashy for christmas - this thing looks more sedate on the hanger than it does when you put it on - they'll feel self-conscious at a party and it'll be in the charity shops by February." I bought a blue and a black version in my size within a couple of months of Christmas.

Types of charity shops:

Hospices: fine quality laundered gear, for ladies over forty.
Cat rescue and YMCA: Disorganised, underpriced, sometimes smelly.
Oxfam: Getting very good at categorising books, but prices funky oddments beyond most skinflint's pockets.

Best ever purchase: in terms of a bargain, the Patrick Cox patent leather shoes for a fiver.
In more creative and less mercenary terms: a black velvet puff-sleeve seventies suit, and an enormous chainmail necklace and a black satin Vollers corset (all under a tenner).

Most recently, visiting the parents last weekend, I visited five shops and a jumble sale and found two threepiece pinstripes - total cost 9 quid. And really, I have only contributed to this thread to boast about that.

10:52 / 22.03.05

Personally, nope, don't buy clothes off charity shops mainly because in my area it's actually cheaper to travel to London and buy from Dotty P's or Next for decent stuff I would actually wear.
The only 'bargains' are (a)fairly newish stuff that you wouldn't even be buried in, (b) stuff that is new but to call it tacky would be an insult to Chavs or (c) franky rank, ie never been washed hence it adds to the general smell of the place in summer.
However I do buy books, in fact many a bargain can be had in that department. But again places like Oxfam have caught on to this. Goodness knows why Oxfam don't just sell this stuff via ebay, the amount they ask for some clothes, books and assorted stuff!

20:01 / 23.03.05

In my neck of the world all the thriftstores are scavenged by professional reto/antique/hip hunters. Combine this with the fact that the men's sections are invariably less stocked than the women's section, all that's left over is usually pretty scroungy. Now that I don't have to wear thrift-store clothes, I usually don't.

Another problem I've had with thrift-stores is they aren't often as big a discount as they should/could be. I just recently bought a second-hand leather jacket for $35. When I add in $50 or so for cleaning I've ended up spending $10 less than I would have if I'd bought it new.

Waltzing Ganainm

21:04 / 23.03.05

I used to live in thrift store finds when I was younger, re-dying and altering a lot of what I came across, and I still find the odd gem from time to time, but I agree that they seem to be much more expensive than they used to. Oxfam has certainly caught on to the rare book trade, and almost all of the charity shops now carry full price gifts, which puts me off going into them, as there's less space left for the jumble.

13:20 / 24.03.05

Actually that's one of things about charity shops which annoy many store owners in the high street I work. Charity shops are now selling new stuff, things brought by the shop/charity to sell. This in itself is not a bad thing but the fact charity shops AFAIK in england don't pay business rates because they sell secondhand stuff for charity. Now they are selling new stuff but still don't pay business rates. This could all be wrong but it was the general moan at the last chambers of commerce thing I was dragged to.

08:15 / 30.03.05

But surely they're still selling them for charity?

09:14 / 30.03.05

Kit-Kat -the only shop I know that sells new things is Oxfam, (maybe others are different), and they're selling fair trade goods -so you're supporting whoever made the new thing (for want of a better phrase) rather than the charity itself. Which, I suppose it could be argued, is more direct -does anyone else know which charities do this?

I've never had that much luck with buying from charity shops (I do remember their being good for velvet jackets when I was a Manics Fan™ ), but might try looking at not just the books next time I go into one. Ex's suits sound excellent...

12:32 / 30.03.05

apart from books the only things i buy from charidy shops are coats and suit jackets and i absolutely swear by it. last purchase was an Armani jacket for £20, heh. in the unlikely event that i get rich i doubt i will ever buy a new jacket again. the shops to focus on are simply the ones where short-sighted old biddies but the prices on things which they have no idea of the value of.

But there can be disadvantages. When my brother sees me wearing thrift store stuff he will yell, "dead man's clothes!!" and run round the room screaming for anything up to a minute. (At 27 years old you think he'd show a little more maturity, but there you have it.)