It’s the fleeting, sweet season when I get to watch TV with my brother. Just the other night, we caught the end of The Fifth Element (“This move is so ’90s. I love it,” said my infant brother, born in 1990).
Then we watched part of Pretty In Pink, including the scene in history class when a girl with voluminous blond hair asks Andie, Molly Ringwald’s character: “Where’d you get your clothes? The five-and-dime store?” (The photo of Ringwald, above, is from moviestarstyle.com). That movie is a delight for its ’80s style: oh, the boxy jackets! the feathered hair! the Laura Ashley-esque flower explosion!
In the film, Andie takes some heat for her idiosyncratic style and working class roots. Her adventurous, hodgepodge wardrobe is only one of her offenses against the denizens of Preppiedom. But how times have changed, and not just because most of us don’t wear our bangs up and down anymore.
The other day, I caught a story in USA Today about renewed interest in thrift stores in the wake of the recession. Jessica Tully indicates that, according to America’s Research Group, “About 20% of people shop in thrift stores regularly, compared with about 14% in 2008.”
And while thrifting is not, like, something you need to take a class in, successful thrift shopping is an art, one at which I’ve been steadily improving over the years. For my high school senior prom, in the mid-’90s, I found a dress at a consignment store in town (photo of yours truly, above) to match my friend Brad’s tux and ’78 Cadillac.
Granted, a consignment shop is not a thrift store, and my dress was not exactly avant-garde formalwear. But still, it was a pre-owned vintage garment on the cheap in the waning days of Jessica McClintock prom hegemony.
I’ve been finding some great reading on the art of thrifting, so I predict a series of posts to come about this style strategy that’s trendier than ever. I still have that powder blue dress. Too bad I don’t have a prom to go to anytime soon.