'Thrift' Gets Pricey

Fighting global warming. It's important. And it's trendy. If you already bike to work and eat local, reconsidering what you wear might seem the logical next step. Clothing is the big bad of daily essentials, and wearing recycled clothes keeps clothes out of landfills, reduces the energy required to manufacture new clothes, and, best of all, induces the irresistible thrill of finding that perfect jacket for dirt-cheap.

And then there are just people who are slaves to retro fashion, the individual style statement that can only be gleaned from second-hand racks. Consider movie star Sienna Miller, lauded in the glossies for her fashion sense plucked from indie and vintage sources.

But popularity has a price. A price that keeps going up at a lot of thrift stores. Which is pinching a lot of people who could care less about looking retro-eco-cool, and just want to save money.

Value Village's hot properties

Among my thrift-shopping acquaintances, Value Village, the big-box store of second hand, often gets blamed for creeping prices. On a recent trip to the Langley location, I found a pair of Gap pants, original tags still attached, for $19.99 and a Banana Republic skirt for $49.99 -- pretty good deals in the mall, but not so sweet for a second hand store.

Value Village spokeswoman Amanda Foley agrees that the second-hand shopping is on the rise. "We definitely have seen an increase in the thrift trend, particularly among young adults and teenagers." But she told The Tyee that there have been no initiatives to increase prices across the chain.

Shoppers feel differently. Sandra Dykxhoorn has frequented Value Villages from Langley to London (Ontario) and says that prices have "gone up significantly in the last two years." Now working on Parliament Hill, Dykxhoorn visits the Ottawa location for career clothes. Higher prices haven't bridled her enthusiasm for the store.

"I still love Value Village," she says.

For Linnea McNally, shopping second-hand is a family tradition that began when her parents were too poor to shop at the mall, but too busy with work and young children to make their own clothes. By the time she, their third daughter, was born the McNally's could afford to shop elsewhere, but a trip to a used clothing store was still a much-anticipated family outing.

"I think it might be the Irish in our blood to see if we can beat the system and pay a little for goods that people pay a lot for," says McNally, who carried the thrift habit into her college days. She bought second-hand for the joy of giving a second life to items other people no longer wanted. It also kept her from looking like everyone else.

"In Coquitlam there's really only the mall to shop at and everybody was a carbon copy," says McNally.

Expo T-shirts

Now the pendulum has swung the other way: retro clothes are in and the place to find them is the thrift stores.

"Everyone's into finding clothes from the '80s and wearing old Expo T-shirts," says McNally. "Especially with our generation being eco-friendly, it's starting to be an okay thing to shop thrift." But the higher prices are dampening her enthusiasm.

In Vancouver, numerous vintage clothing stores attract shoppers willing to pay a little more than the standard Salvation Army price. At vintage hot-spots Mintage and Used, you can expect to pay about the same amount for a used dress as you would for a new dress in the mall. In downtown Victoria, professionals browse the racks of Verve Fashion for consignment Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana and Prada pieces. Though the prices are more than a third off the original, they're still out of reach if you're barely getting by. But these stores don't cater to those who shop second hand out of necessity.

For those shoppers, Value Village does remain an option, if only because of its sheer volume of items. Bonnie Fraser, who manages the Langley Value Village, says she receives the occasional complaint about something being too expensive, but shoppers can usually find something within their budget.

"Maybe you can't afford that particular item," says Fraser, "but there are 10 or 20 other ones that you can."

As far as Value Villages go, the Langley location isn't bad. After a 2002 fire destroyed the city's original store, the company rebuilt, installing floor to ceiling windows on two sides of the building. The result is plenty of sunshine (when the sun actually shines in Langley) and a far cry from the musty, windowless Value Village I remember from my childhood in Alberta.

Cleaning out drawers?

What if you're clearing your own closet, and want to donate used items directly to charity, rather than to a corporate entity? Is Value Village the place to drop them off?

While Value Village does pay a bulk rate to local non-profit organizations both for goods they collect and items donated directly to the store, the company has to pay staff and turn a profit.

Charity thrift stores, on the other hand, provide inexpensive clothes for those on lower incomes and send proceeds directly to a worthy cause. Hospital auxiliary stores in Delta, White Rock, Richmond, Burnaby and Langley support patients, as well as their families. The SPCA, Mennonite Central Committee and the venerable Salvation Army are non-profit organizations with thrift outlets across the province that provide cheap clothes and a commitment to support both people and animals in need. My Sister's Closet, which is run by the Battered Women's Support Services, sells used clothes to the general public and offers free clothes to women who have been abused.

And if you want to give clothes away, you can them to the First United Church in East Vancouver, which opens its doors daily to members of the community who can take whatever they need free of charge.

For more guidance, you may want to turn to Collene Ford's Thrift Store Guide to BC, published by Ford in 2005 after years of "poking about" in second hand stores across the province. Most recommendations in the book are charity thrift stores, which are not-for-profit and often employ volunteers, keeping overhead and prices at a minimum.

Know of a thrift store in your community that still has reasonable prices? Or a place to drop off clothes where they'll be given out free, to people in need? Please list it in the comments section below.

Related Tyee stories:

• The Thrill of Thrift Hunting
  An antidote to silly, feckless fashion?
• In Search of Ethical Gladrags
  Is a locally manufactured wardrobe possible?
• 'The Soul of Cloth'
  Bamboo fabric and other alternatives to toxic fashion.