What's crazy to me, being an Angeleno, is seeing women with $4000 Louies or $3000 Dolce and Gabannas. I guess it represents that you can afford that price tag, but what's the point when there are thousands of people in LA that carry that name brand? Hundreds of thousands around the world. So your "couture" and "original" handbag is no longer either. I guess it's a status symbol kinda like driving over priced cars that no one can actually afford.
In high school back when Abercrombie was cool, I would try so hard to be able to afford their $28 t-shirts or their $60-$100 jeans. Obvio with minimum wage paying jobs, I couldn't afford what the other kids' parents were buying them and my mother refused to spend that much on clothes, ever.
Then I moved to Cali where Abercrombie was looked at as stupid and lame (compared to Hollister, which is Californian for Abercrombie and is now also stupid and lame) and so I felt like I had to scrap a lot of my wardrobe.
Around that time is when I met a cute boy whose fashion was the best and most unique I'd ever seen. He bought everything at second hand shops, thrift stores, and vintage stores. No one ever had the clothes that this guy had. They all fit perfectly and looked like a million bucks, too. He was the best dressed person I had ever seen in the flesh...
And then a lightbulb went off in my head...
Since 2002, I don't like malls and don't like name brands. Can't stand them, in fact. And no, it isn't just the prison style florescent lighting in most retail stores. It's just that these days I'm used to paying $1.50-$5 for a t-shirt that no one else will ever own, I can't imagine my days of a $30 t-shirt...let alone a $3000 purse. Or a $50 purse, even.
Maybe it was just that I was in college and poor, but I loved and still love second hand clothes shopping. These days, my best stores are Buffalo Exchange and Out of the Closet, which is a non profit who's proceeds benefit the AIDS Health Foundation here in SoCal. So nowadays I have an impeccable wardrobe that was built helping others. Not too shabby, eh?
Second hand clothes are not for everyone. Some people are grossed out by the concept of who wore the clothes before them. To me, I'm all about energy. I feel the energy of the people who owned these clothes before me and listen to their stories. And then I give the clothes new life as part of my closet collection. It's empowering to know that I'm walking, literally in someone else's shoes, and giving those shoes a new tale to tell.
Everything has a story. By poppin' tags at the thrift shop, I'm continuing that story and lookin' damn fine doing it!
