Thrift Yuppie
I try to be environmentally conscious. I try to be prudent with my money. I try to assert my individuality. All of these conflicting efforts converge in my shopping at thrift stores. Unfortunately, another arena that I enjoy has slowly strangled the joy out of Thrifting. See, I loved Al Hoff's stuff on "Thrift Scores" and the indie-punk-alternative aesthetic that informed the notion that you could be cool by shopping at "Sallie's" (The Salvation Army store) "Goodies" (Goodwill) or your thrift store of choice (my favorites, over the years, have been the St. Vincent De Paul "Value Village", the "Savers" chain of thrift stores, and reconstructed pure Funk of the ever-changing thrift Emporiums on 4th avenue in Tucson. Stage outfits, Work clothes, Club Wear? I got them all at places like that. Part of it really was a high-minded desire to not be wasteful with my resources, either environmental, or financial. But a good part of it was that I believed I was smarter and more "cool' than the average joe for doing it that way. Unfortunately, the rise of Ebay, and internet "Nerds" and "Retro" (all of which I enjoy, mind you) have slowly destroyed all that was good about it. Now, the kind of elitest Uber-hipster that I loathe will often be seen in a magazine wearing exactly the kind of outfit I would've bought for 3 bucks at Savers on a dollar day sale, only they paid 300 bucks on Ebay for
it.It's gotten to the point that I read in the Post today that Em Hall is a Goodwill fashion Blogger (Goodwill Fashionista), and they have fashion shows for Goodwill on Youtube. Salvation Army is having their fashion show at the Ritz Carlton on Wednesday. No, that's not a sarcastic joke. I mean, quite literally, exactly that. Various Thrift shops have Ebay stores, where they sell things at ten times the price you'll find for the same items in stores. If you go to the store, you'll find they now have behind-the-counter items, where stuff from desirable brands, or that fits exactly that 'retro cool' vibe will be priced higher than the stuff on the racks. But the prices on the racks are going up significantly, as well. Where you always have had to employ a strategy when shopping thrift, it's now downright guerilla warfare: you scout out when the best times are, and you go in disguise so that other shoppers don't know that you have any clue what you're shopping for, and and you have to be prepared to swoop in quickly to grab stuff before a 'reseller' buys it (Resellers come in two varieties; the person who buys all the cheapest stuff in bulk to resell at swap meets and the person who finds the collectable and branded stuff to sell online). Don't get me wrong: I cannot blame others for capitalizing on a good idea, even if I had the idea before them, and didn't capitalize on it. Also, i'm far from alone. Heck, the price jumps didn't come from nowhere: lots of people are probably thinking the same thing as me: dang, where'd my thrift go? Now, I'm stuck paying the same inflated prices to buy trendy stuff, like all the mall rats.
If there is a solution, it's probably a pretty bitter pill. Either start buying the stuff that I dislike at the thrift, or pay too much on Ebay. For various reasons, I'm probably going to continue to slog it out at the thrifts, for now, and wax nostalgic for the good ol' days, while I hope that these folks are short-timers who'll move on to wearing mylar bags or something equally preposterous, simply because, while I can no longer maintain the delusion that I'm teh smartest, and most stylish shopper, pwning the n00bz, I can, at least, try to live in my comfortable illusion that it's my turf, after all....
