Put a Spring in Your Step! Come Thrifting with Me

On any given day, I make a mental note of how much my outfit costs. One of my all-time favourite ensembles came out to a grand total of $1.50, minus underwear and shoes. So, crown me the empress of cheap thrills! I humbly accept the laurels.

If there is one thing that being an inveterate thrifter has taught me, it’s that value is total fiction. This hasn’t stopped me from looking for designer labels when digging through the racks. I am only human, and if brands like Max Mara or Salvatore Ferragamo are for the having with a little effort, move over: Mama is going to town.

But thrifting ain’t what she used to be.

Pull up a chair, young ‘uns. I feel a bout of old fogey coming on. I could load you up with tales of old-timey cheapness, when you could visit your local thrift store and stagger out the door laden with finds for less than $20.

Any thrifty veteran will have noticed the uptick in prices in recent years. Value Village is culprit number one in this inflationary creep, but even independent shops have succumbed to the trend.

In some cases, I can understand and forgive.

If you’re raising funds for a worthy cause, I’m happy to pay more money. In the case of establishments like My Sister’s Closet, with storefronts on Main Street and Commercial Drive, supporting programs that help women is worth it.

Elsewhere, however, sticker shock at the thrift shop has become something of a regular experience.

The minute the corporate world caught the scent of something that has previously eluded their grasp of profit-making, things began to shift. Hence the rise of websites like Depop and Poshmark. Influencers and their ilk are driving up prices, reducing caches of cool stuff and generally just being annoying.

Upsellers documenting their finds on social media make it seem like there are racks and racks of designer duds simply waiting to be plucked and resold. Some of these videos are so patently ridiculous that you needn’t pay them any attention. No one is donating a vintage Hermès Kelly bag, which retails for thousands of dollars, no matter what some overly enthusiastic social media maven might say.

The idea that a purse costs the same amount as a car might give you pause, and so it should, but I refer you back to the opening gambit of this essay, namely that value is something entirely made up.

The flip side of the luxury thrift coin is the preponderance of fast fashion (H&M, Old Navy, Zara, Shein) flooding the racks of thrift stores everywhere.

All of these things might signify the end of an era. But good news! Having traipsed across all corners of Metro Vancouver, I have returned with details on where to go, when to go and how to affordably revamp your wardrobe with warmer days marching resolutely towards us.

For the best thrift store around, Good Stuff Connection

Yes, it’s tiny, and located at the top of steep climb up Lonsdale Avenue in North Vancouver, but this place is the bomb. Take the SeaBus on a bright and sunny day. Perambulate through Lonsdale Quay, then pop into the Polygon Gallery and the Museum of North Vancouver. Loll about the Shipyards, where on a warm afternoon the waterpark will be filled with shrieking, gamboling children.

I am still at a loss to explain why Good Stuff Connection Thrift Store & Clothing Program, run by North Shore Crisis Services Society, has been the site of the thrift store equivalent of striking it rich. One of the best things about this place is that they regularly have 50 per cent-off sales, which means items on the $1 rack are 50 cents. Which is how I came to be wearing an outfit that cost $1.50.

The number of super-duper discoveries I have found here is extraordinary. But the grand prize winner is a vintage cashmere Zegna overcoat in deepest navy. Sure, she needed a good cleaning, but it was nothing that a good soak in baby shampoo and air-drying flat for a few days wouldn’t cure. Hola! Beauty reborn.

The bad news? She was almost immediately claimed by my son Louis, who knows fashion as well as his mother.

For hip kittens downtown, Wildlife Thrift Store

The place is a little on the hipster end, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Like canaries in a cool coal mine, hipsters have a way of sniffing good stuff out. On the day I visited Wildlife Thrift Store on the south end of Granville Street downtown, the joint was jumping with a younger demographic. Everyone seemed cheerful and tunes poured out of the sound system. If you closed your eyes, you could imagine you were in Canal Street jeans or other famous fashion haunts of yore.

The place is big, with a varied stock and good turnover. Although the designer rack at the front of the store tends to be on the higher-priced side, any proper dig through the racks will offer up some primo scores.

I found vintage Escada and St. John, luxe lady brands of a certain era, but well made and in excellent condition. But the find of the day was a Harris Wharf London wool coat in a springy shade of ballet pink.

On the west side, HOB Charity Shops

Kerrisdale isn’t quite as “Old Ladyville” as it once was, but it’s still pretty gentrified up on old West 41st Avenue. The HOB Charity Shops thrift store is more upscale than a great many other places in the city, as befits their location.

The items in the store tend towards the pricier: Max Mara, Eileen Fisher and other august fashion lines that older people tend to gravitate towards. The volunteers who staff the store are chipper and so upbeat that it’s worth taking a look around.

You can also pay a visit to Vancouver-born, Hollywood-famous actor Ryan Reynolds’ favourite restaurant, Minervas, while you’re up there.

In Richmond, go to RAPS

Anything that helps support the cause of animal protection and I’m in. The Regional Animal Protection Society thrift store on Granville Avenue in Richmond is a few short blocks walk from the Richmond-Brighouse SkyTrain station. It is a thrift store proper, meaning you’ve got to dig. But that’s part of the game. Prices are posted on the wall, and they are more than fair.

And even in the unlikeliest of places, the fashion gods can smile upon you. Witness: a vintage Celine blouse, with the name of the venerable French fashion house engraved on each tiny opalescent button, and a vintage Issey Miyake sweater, albeit with a few nicks and bumps, but still so lovely.

When in Mount Pleasant, hit up Miscellany Thrift & Vintage

This place is right next to my dentist, so while killing time before a root canal, Miscellany Thrift & Vintage is a good place for a quick poke about. On the plus side, the staff are helpful and sweet. On the not-so-plus side, it’s a little overpriced and picked over. But just when you’re about to give up and head next door to meet the dentist’s drill, you can stumble across something amazing. This is exactly what happened to me, when I encountered a fashion fission collision from Japanese designer Junya Watanabe and avant-garde fashion empire Comme des Garçons.

In Hastings-Sunrise, visit VGH Thrift Store

Located a block or two off Nanaimo Street on East Hastings, VGH Thrift Store is a pretty small and well combed-over place. The highlight of my visit was the staff. They all looked to be in high school, and they were hanging out, gabbing up a storm behind the counter, not paying a whit of attention to customers. Kids, never change, please.

Across the city, Salvation Army

The various locations of Salvation Army’s thrift stores are quite different. West Vancouver and North Vancouver, which you think would be rich with finds, have proved unsatisfying. The location in New Westminster, however, is great. A block from the SkyTrain station abutting the New Westminster Quay, it has proven fruitful. For one thing, it’s large, well organized, colour-coded for those folks looking for a certain jade-green vase or a deep purple platter. Housewares and tchotchkes are big here, but there’s plenty of stuff for everyone.

South of the city, hidden gems

Both of these require a bit of a drive, so take that into account, but there are some great thrift stores in both Ladner and Tsawwassen. I’m still kicking myself for not nabbing a drapey Lanvin dress on a recent visit. Sure, it was little on the high side pricewise, but I can’t stop wondering how some bit of Parisian couture came to be hanging on the racks in a Tsawwassen thrift store. The mysteries of the universe will never cease to amaze.

If you’ve made it all the way to Delta, perhaps you feel to the need to float a little further. If the spirit of adventures takes you, hop aboard a ferry and deboard in Sidney. The place is home to a whack of legendary thrift stores.

Hold a clothing swap in your own home

If you have a wide circle of stylish friends, lucky you! Invite them over, ply them with wine and different kinds of potato chips, then steal the clothes off their back. I kid… or do I? Just ask all my naked friends.

These exchanges go both ways. The joy of running into a pal while they’re wearing a jacket that you gave them knows no bounds.

There are also larger clothing swaps in community centres across the city, so keep your eyes peeled for one near you. In fact, here’s one now! UBC’s Slow Fashion season is wrapping up with a bang. The inaugural Slow Fashion Fair takes place at UBC Robson Square on March 28, with clothing swaps, mending circles, a panel discussion and a keynote from Pattern Nation.

The attraction of slow fashion and thrift stores isn’t just paying pennies on the dollar for a bit of frippery and fabric. It’s something else. Surprise, discovery, the hunter-gatherer instinct honed from days primeval spring into action.

But even that doesn’t quite encompass it. At the heart of thrifting is a kind of rescue. Taking something that was unloved and honouring its beauty, endurance and resiliency.

Just remember the ultimate thrift store rule: hold on tightly, let go lightly. If it doesn’t spark joy or whatever for you, it might give another person a sweet jolt of happiness. So, be generous and share the wealth. It will come back to you with feathers. Marabou, preferably.