Interesting article from NY magazine about vintage shopping:

Excellent article, and great quote from you, Jonathan!

I love the "mathematical analysis" of why thrift stores are a bust, and logically so. And I love this quote, as a nostalgic glance back at secondhand shopping:

" it was almost as if our full-time job was to piece together an identity out of sounds and pages and fabric. Were we the kind of person who wore '50s tulle and listened to Nico? Or who read Shakespeare and wore '60s prairie dresses? Decades of fashion and all of recorded human cultural history was ours to plunder."
 
I belong to the "piece together an identity out of sounds and pages and fabric" (well stated!) generation, so this is a very helpful perspective on the newer vintage shopping scene.
 
"I was there recently and some young women came in asking for costumes for a '70s-themed party. Angela tried to pull some lovely things, like a white Halston-ish blouse, but one of the young women said, “No, like'70s,” and began describing more garish disco looks. Angela rolled her eyes and returned to watching TV."

I think Angela sounds fabulous. I have run into this mindset with some of my customers on Etsy. Thanks for posting.
 
(Indeed, I have 1950s dresses that have made it through the washing machine 50 times without showing it at all, and then shirts from Zara that didn’t survive one garden party before the seams fell out.)
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I have found some pretty good vintage pieces at Buffalo Exchange in Houston.

Nice read.
 
Very enlightening on the younger vintage shoppers. When I would arrive at my local thrift store and see the other shoppers who visit daily, as I do, I worried that the stock would be picked over. Then I was able to figure out that they were buying designer and desirable name brands for re-sale and not vintage. In the 80s, it was easy to find and inexpensive to buy 1930s - 1950s clothes, which I wore until they disintegrated. What's left I still wear. It's harder to find anything pre-1980s now, but I love the search and it makes it all the more rewarding when I do find something special.
 
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