[stylegurrl]

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November 9, 2004 Old Is Everywhere, So a Charity Tries On the New By GUY TREBAY he day Grace Jones's hooded leather Azzedine Alaïa dress comes through the door at a Housing Works Thrift store, both the dress and Eduardo Bennett, the charity's women's wear expert, are going to walk. That, anyway, is what Mr. Bennett said with a laugh last week, as he threaded his way through a maze of garments hung from overhead racks in a Queens warehouse down the block from a depot for the online food market Fresh Direct. Fresh is about the last thing anyone might call the stuff sold at the four Housing Works shops in Manhattan, and that is precisely the point. There was a time when used clothes were termed castoffs and not fancied up as "vintage," when thrift stores were still Aladdin's caves for bargain hunters with fashion sense and a sharp eye. Those days, it would appear, are over. Blame a culture of recycling, or Miuccia Prada or the general failure of designers even to attempt innovation anymore. Whatever the reason, old is the new new. And it is a truth people in the secondhand clothes business know only too well. "The competition is wising up," Matthew Bernardo, the president of Housing Works Thrift stores said last week, referring to both the supply side and the demand. Where charities once relied on clueless but genteel blue-haired volunteers to stand sentinel over other people's castoffs, now a solid knowledge of eBay comparables is required, as well as laser instincts for the fugitive unlabeled treasure from Stephen Sprouse. The hunt for old clothes, Mr. Bernardo said, becomes more cutthroat daily, as vintage aficionados vie with museum curators, collectors and platoons of fanatical pickers, who swoop through the city's thrift stores looking for stock to keep the vintage maw fed. It is not rare, Mr. Bernardo said, to see the same faces making a circuit of Housing Works' stores three times a day. They have to. These days, vintage is not just the province of resale stores. Even high-end retailers have entered the global trade. The Polo Sport store in SoHo and the DKNY on Madison Avenue have both sold vintage pieces alongside new clothes, and Bon Marché in Paris this fall transformed a large area on its second floor into a boutique selling old clothes next to new ones deliberately designed to look as though they had been around the block. It is a struggle to keep pace. And so places like Housing Works — long a favorite charity among New York's fashion elite — are improvising new strategies, like a four-day benefit called Fashion4Action, which opens tomorrow with a benefit cocktail party given by the actress Natasha Richardson. It will then morph into a sample sale offering over $1 million worth of new salesroom samples donated by 80 designers, like Prada, Armani, Narciso Rodriguez and the tiny independent Palmer Jones. "You have to come up with something to keep people coming in," Mr. Bernardo said. Still, the core of a nonprofit that will generate $9 million this year to support AIDS and homeless programs is not samples, but the mysterious matter that gets hauled from collection points around New York to the Housing Works depot. There, in two daily shifts, 15 salaried sorters mine a mountain of donations, whose Sisyphean dimensions never seem to diminish. Roughly 10,000 garbage bags of clothes come into the warehouse every month, an increase of 30 percent from five years ago. "Sometimes," said Ira Botor, the warehouse manager, "it does feel like you're being closed in." That observation seemed like an understatement last week, as Mr. Botor paused before an Everest of black plastic blobs, which so dwarfed his slight frame that any person of lesser fortitude might see it and run screaming into the street. "People all decide to donate at the same time because they want the deduction," Mr. Botor explained, referring to the end-of-year Internal Revenue Service deadline. "You get through it," he added flatly, as a platoon of workers loaded trolleys and wheeled the bags to sorting tables, tore them open and got to work. Hands gloved against rash and the occasional outbreak of scabies, the sorters sifted the contents, dividing them into men's and women's wear categories, culling out the goods with soiled collars, frayed cuffs, woebegone crotches and mold (yes, mold.) They tossed undergarments, elbowless sweaters and pilled flannel pajamas into bins to be sent to a rag jobber, who will repeat this sorting process with a liberal eye and send goods too damaged for resale in the United States to vendors in Guinea or Bangladesh. "Things that are really, really unusable, they rag," Mr. Botor explained, referring to garments beyond any sartorial redemption. Even those will find use, however, he said, as stuffing for airplane seats. But naturally, it is the high-end apparel that triggers the flow of adrenaline. "Everyone here is trained to spot couture," Mr. Botor said. "I test them to keep their knowledge of designers upgraded and to know the trends." This season, for instance, "Tweeds are what people are buying, thrift-wise. It's like a department store where you have to keep up with what people want." Just as important is seducing consumers with what they do not know they want until it floats across their field of vision, direct from the closet of the model Iman, who recently donated a cache of dresses from Mr. Alaïa and Thierry Mugler, or from the wardrobe of the soprano Roberta Peters, who recently gave away three decades of dresses and costumes, or from an anonymous Samaritan who not long ago dropped off a $10,000 Fendi fur dress from 1992 stuffed into a Conway bag. It is true that there are times when the pickings get slim and the Hefty bags produce more St. John knits than 1960's suits from Pauline Trigère. But then suddenly a donation arrives, as occurred during this reporter's visit, that has the distinct look of a lottery winning. "I don't know who these people are that they can give these things away," said Mr. Bennett, stagily stroking his mane of luxuriant hair. He was referring to a donation of furs that included a nearly new man's trench coat lined with sheared mink and a woman's calf-length golden sable bearing a label from the uptown furrier Dennis Basso. "Even I'm surprised she would give that away," Mr. Basso said last week, when notified of this anonymous act of largess. "That's a $75,000 coat." The sable will be sold at one of the charity's monthly silent auctions — held at each of the stores — for which, Mr. Bernardo said, the charity reserves its choicest finds. The practice has led some donors to gripe that their best donations never seem to make it to the stores, whose racks occasionally look crammed not with rarities but with designer licensee junk. "People don't realize that if you live in Chelsea, you can't expect to see your stuff in Chelsea," Mr. Bernardo said, referring to the charity's two downtown stores, one on West 17th Street and the other on East 23rd. "People also give us spring goods in fall, and obviously we can't sell it then," Mr. Bernardo explained. And sometimes goods float over the transom that would tax the abilities of the most creative merchant. "We get some strange things," Mr. Bennett said, as he moved aside a rack containing clothes from Chanel, Alaïa, Mr. Sprouse and Mr. Mugler to disclose a stupefying sight. "It's Koos," he said, referring to the designer Koos van den Akker, who may prefer to forget that he once designed a patchwork adult onesie of metallic cloth and velvet, with a clownish collar and a pair of booties attached. "This one I just can't see myself sending out there," Mr. Bennett said, and indeed the garment in question resembled a hazmat suit designed for Liberace. "It's just too ugly to sell."

[LolitaLuxe]

so true

im an avid scavenger at charity/thrift shops. i cant find anything anymore....maybe once in a blue moon. i cant believe there were days when i would get a paper bag full of retro t's for 5 dollars! a bag full!! today, on melrose they range from 35-175 dollars!! for WORN t shirts. sorry but if its over priced i will not buy it. it has to be WORTH it, like a very good find, but these days its getting ridiculous. levi's cords i saw the other day for 200. the days where i would find good 70's boots......all gone. hippy skirts.....nope. an actual vintage piece, dream on everything is gone in thriftland

last time i "scored" was an 80's herve leger dress for 2 dollars it was like an amazing high thrifting is an addiction i cant believe there are people keener than me out there in charity shop land taking everything and over pricing it.

but this sale sounds exciting !

[utopia]

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Originally posted by LolitaLuxe@Nov 11 2004, 02:39 AM i cant believe there are people keener than me out there in charity shop land taking everything and over pricing it. [snapback]426838[/snapback]

no lolita, I don't think they ARE keener than you. they're just people who have been caught up in a trend. most of these people wouldn't have even considered shopping at a charity shop 5 years ago.

I hate this quote:

Quote:

"The competition is wising up"

what competition?? they're a charity!! they're not supposed to be competitive. somehow it seems really dishonest to me to see thrift stores marking up their prices just because they can. I know the money is for charity, but it still seems to defeat the purpose of what a thrift store really is - a place to buy someone else's old clothes. it's just as bad as topshop buying up cheap clothes at the street markets and then reselling them for 40, 50 pounds or more.

I, too, remember the days when I could go thrifting and come out with a bag full of vintage givenchy and beautifully crafted coats for $3 or $4 each. the shopworkers didn't know nor did they care about the labels. they just priced them according to the catagory they belonged in.
I'm just glad that I still have a couple of secret places places back home that still haven't been discovered by the fashion vultures.

[As You Like It]

I can still do marvelously at thrifting, but I don't look for secondhand designer stuff. Just good secondhand clothes, any make, so long as it is my size and color.

I've got tons of kickass vintage, and a lot of it has tags from Sears Junior Botique and J.C. Penny's Junior Bazaar.

Mass-market clothing used to be a lot better made than it is now, and you can see the hallmarks of quality construction in these old garments; plaids that match across seamlines, fitted full-linings, piped seams on delicate fabrics, and sufficient seam-allowance for alterations, if necessary.

So if your high-end thrift-shops have gotten too pricey or picked over, I highly suggest coming to a less-ritzy area of town and seeing what you can find. I can almost promise you that you will find stuff you like, and you can come out with plenty-o-goods for just a little cash.


J. C. Penny Junior Bazaar, folks. $12 at the Disabled American Veterans' shop. 100% wool, and freakin' awesome. Plus, I am always glad to support the DAV.

[purechris]

thanks for the article Stylegrrl
I've always been a thrifter. I still find good stuff for cheap. You just have to circulate often. Like the article says, some people shop 3 times a week. I hit the stores once a week on my day off.
I've always been fascinated by the process that takes place behind the scenes. I have thought many a time about volunteering, but would probably be obsessive about the way the merchandise was put out.

[utopia]

Quote:

Originally posted by As You Like It@Nov 11 2004, 12:17 PM Mass-market clothing used to be a lot better made than it is now, and you can see the hallmarks of quality construction in these old garments; plaids that match across seamlines, fitted full-linings, piped seams on delicate fabrics, and sufficient seam-allowance for alterations, if necessary. [snapback]427147[/snapback]

I completely agree. some of my nicest vintage stuff is no-name labels, and they are cut beautifully. besides the construction techniques you pointed out, there is also a difference in the quality of fabric that is so desirable. it's interesting that a vintage woollen sweater often holds up better than a woollen sweater that's only one year old - and I speak this from experience.

though I've noticed a lot of the vintage shops are catching on to this and re-pricing even sears and j.c. penny vintage so that it's ridiculously expensive.

I still do quite well thrifting, if I go to my select few undiscovered hole-in-the-wall thrift shops, which are in the less nice parts of town. I'd much rather support the poorer, less visited establishments anyway. their charities need money just as much as the big-time charities. when I'm at home in the states I thrift usually 1 - 3 times a week, so the little old ladies at the shops know me too, which is nice.

[tiffany]

Quote:

Originally posted by As You Like It@Nov 11 2004, 11:17 AM I can still do marvelously at thrifting, but I don't look for secondhand designer stuff. Just good secondhand clothes, any make, so long as it is my size and color [snapback]427147[/snapback]

I completely agree with you

[maskedmannequin]

Quote:

I've always been fascinated by the process that takes place behind the scenes. I have thought many a time about volunteering, but would probably be obsessive about the way the merchandise was put out.

I volunteered a few years ago...what basically happens is that, things are donated and there's a store of bags full of clothing.
There are a few volunteers in a back room who open the bags and sort though the clothes. There's a (large!) place for garments that wouldn't sell-either because they are REALLY not nice/awful quality or because they are stained-underarm, crotch stains.. which was kinda not nice to learn!! Heh! Luckily none of those while I was there.
The garments that can't be sold (excluding electrical items which can't for legal reasons) are then put into a big "bin" which is sent off to be "ragged"-basically sent to be made into things like the stuffing for aeroplane seats as said in the article.
The rest is then pressed,ironed or steamed if needs be (we had a steamer) and put out onto the shop floor.
That's basically it!
Oh and there are certain prices that are allowed to be put on...and you have to gauge which price needs to be put on !
Nothing exciting!

[oceanharlot]

I find the best vintage stuff at OFF vintage places. ie. Not Salvation Army or Goodwill or vintage stores.

Lately... I've been going garage saling. its the ultimate treasure hunt. such an adrenaline rush when you find something amazing among the piles of Bazaar, Jordache and Two Lips... I found an Hermes scarf a few months ago. Still reeling.

[kealoha]

i love thrifting & have really scored over the past 3 months. lots of gently used designer stuff, but fabulous vintage pieces too.

[snickerdoodles]

I find better vintage stuff and at better prices on ebay than I do in regular thrift shops. Living in big cities where vintage is popular sucks - every place is picked over so that there's nothing left and that what is left is terribly over-priced.