It seems like an everyday occurrence at a school like Ithaca College to walk through campus and save at least a dozen outfits you see to a mental Pinterest board. Walking across the quad to your class is sometimes the only chance the outside world gets to see your outfits! With such a fashion-forward school like IC, a common response you’ll hear on campus, if you compliment someone’s sweater/patchwork pants/bag/etc. is “Thanks! I thrifted it!” Thrifting is an incredibly popular way to shop among college students that doesn’t break the bank, especially for people who like unique, vintage, second-hand clothes.
thrifting
Some of the best clothing items you can find that aren’t outrageously expensive are in thrift stores. If you’re interested in having unique clothes that make you excited to craft an outfit, thrifting may be for you! Since I was 15 I’ve been going to a Goodwill once or twice a month when I can, slowly cultivating my almost entirely thrifted wardrobe. Walking into a thrift store can feel very intimidating, which is why understanding the best ways to approach it can help you find success. With this guide you can hopefully have better luck finding pieces you are ecstatic about, pieces you can’t wait to be asked about so you get to say, “I thrifted it!”
Many people who don’t thrift either don’t do it or actively dislike it because they can never find anything they like. “I’m not good at thrifting” is a phrase I often hear from my friends when the topic is brought up. Being “good” at thrifting is a skill people can have, but it isn’t a skill that comes naturally. It takes practice! Walking into a thrift store and walking out with a pile of cool clothes is difficult, but not impossible! Even those who would consider themselves “thrifters” sometimes walk out of a store with nothing, saying, “The thrift gods weren’t on my side today.“
Go in with a game plan
The #1 easiest way to get intimidated by a thrift store, especially if you’ve never been in one before, is to walk in with no particular goal. The easiest way to get overwhelmed with a secondhand store is flipping through racks of clothes not knowing what you’re looking for. First things first, think about what you want to shop for; I don’t have a good pair of black jeans, I’d like a vintage leather jacket, and I want to look for sweaters for the upcoming fall season. It could be anything! Walking into a thrift store having an idea of what you’re looking for makes shopping so much easier. Losing the intimidation of flipping through rack after rack until you see something you like helps you flip the script in your brain, keeping your eyes peeled for certain items. The best part comes when you find something that wasn’t on your mind initially; sometimes the best finds are ones you didn’t even know you needed!
You can’t search the whole store
Going along with walking in with a game plan, you have to know when to stop. Another easy way to get overwhelmed when shopping is thinking you need to look at every single rack. Often thrift stores are organized in a particular way, whether it be by clothing type, size, or even color. The best type of organization method, in my opinion, is both by type and color. My favorite Goodwill store is organized this way, and this makes jumping in when you first enter a store so much easier. By organizing by color, you are able to head directly towards a rack that is likely to have things you will like, while avoiding sections you don’t want to shop in. Why is this important? To optimize your time the best you can, avoiding sections where you’re pretty certain you won’t find anything helps conserve your energy for sections that may be a goldmine.
Along with this, don’t get discouraged if you’ve been flipping through racks and have found nothing, a lot of thrifting is right-place-right-time. It’s so easy to turn your brain off and flip through clothes for hours, thinking the perfect piece is in the next rack. Especially with larger thrift stores, you will tire yourself out feeling like you need to look through each and every aisle. The thrift gods are real. If you are meant to find something, it will find you.
Be honest with yourself
A common term used in the thrift community is something called “thrift blindness.” Thrift blindness can occur when a shopper is overtaken either by the need to find something or the “zone” that can come with thrifting, so they think an item is cute, then return home to find, in fact, it is not. “Is this cute, or am I thrift-blind?” So how do you overcome thrift blindness? The easiest way is to take a second to look at the item while shopping and ask yourself the following questions: Would I actually wear this? What would I wear this with? Where would I wear this? It sounds simple enough, but asking these three questions always helps me determine whether something is worth getting. If I can’t imagine how I would style an item with clothes I already own, I have to be honest with myself and say I can’t get it. Sometimes, you’ll find something that is so cute but isn’t your personal style. So should you get it just because you like it, or will it sit in your closet unworn? Oftentimes you’ll end up thinking, “I like this, but another baddie would wear it better.”
Try on!!!
This might be a controversial opinion, but my outlook on thrifting changed completely when I started using the dressing rooms. Trying on the clothes you’ve found ensures you aren’t faced with remorse or the dreaded thrift blindness when you get home. I understand not everyone may want to try on clothes in a thrift store, as there is the concern of whether or not the clothes are cleaned properly, etc. However, wearing a base layer like a tank top and leggings, is a great solution to try clothes on without them directly touching your skin. I experienced this for many years, buying clothes hoping I would like them only to get home, realize they don’t fit, and then never wear them. It wasn’t until recently that I started taking clothes into the dressing room, and it changed the game for me! Secondhand clothes deserve stable and loving homes; don’t thrift something if you’re just going to send it back. Or worse, resell it for double the price. That’s beside the point — trying on clothes in the store eliminates the uncertainty of should I buy this? Sometimes you can walk into a dressing room with a pile of clothes, only to walk out with none of them! How would you have known none of those clothes worked if you didn’t try them on?
Play the long game
The final piece of advice I can give is to treat thrifting like you’re a collector; you aren’t going to build your collection overnight. Not every time you shop needs to be successful, and not every haul of items has to feel particularly satisfying. You’re not always going to find that vintage piece that fits you perfectly. However, staying consistent and accumulating pieces over time, at some point you may be able to look at your wardrobe and realize a good collection of your things are second hand! The key to a good thrift is patience. Try different stores and find the one that brings you the most success. Over time you will develop an eye for finding what you enjoy, and thrifting can feel like an adventure and not a chore.
Whether you want to have a fully thrifted closet, or you are just interested in trying it out and seeing what you’ll find, there is something for everyone in a thrift store. Bring a friend! Put in headphones! Have fun with it! Sometimes the piece you’ve been looking for is just around the corner (or on the other rack). Happy Thrifting!