Make your own luck; hit the thrift store

Today is supposed to be lucky. If you have red hair, a last name that starts with “Mc” or talk with the kind of accent that makes Americans pine for the words “magically delicious” it should be even more lucky, at least in most neighborhood pubs.

But I’ve discovered something that brings the luck of the Irish any day of the year. Sometimes I affectionately call it Dumpster diving. Other times I call it earth rescuing, consumerism shunning, dollars preserving, sense spending. You might know it simply as thrift store shopping.

Whichever moniker it gets, this newfound practice of mine has the power to shine a four-leaf clover on my spirit on any given day. It has also forever changed the definition of two words we could all stand to reinterpret: expensive and stylish.

Let’s start with expensive. I grew up associating cost with crises. A shouting match between my parents never ignited without an unpaid power bill, overdrafted check or unforeseen expense throwing the first punch. They weren’t bad with money, they were just — for several hard years — short of it.

Call it a symptom of my environment, but it’s made for a bad case of buyer’s remorse. Whenever my wallet loses weight, my guilt gains it back.

But not at the thrift store.

In the past month, I’ve picked up four pair of designer denim pants for no more than $8 each. Normally, they run $200 to $300. Normally, a trip to the cash register brings “Jaws” theme music with it. Normally, the act of contrition prayer follows.

That’s the appeal of secondhand shopping. There’s nothing normal about it, which brings me to my new outlook on style.

See, there is fashion and there is style. Fashion is the stuff a Vogue editor, with a militant bob and secret service sunglasses, decides the people should wear. Style is the stuff people choose to wear. Fashion is a group of trend forecasters and designers concocting “it colors,” “it handbags” and “it trends” in chic offices. Style is one person daring to shun all of that for personal expression. Fashion is labels and dollar signs. Style is the creativity that prospers through scarce finances.

Fashion is a dictatorship. Style is freedom. And guess where both style and freedom abound? The same place this thrift shopper found a cropped, fringe leather jacket with shoulder pads, straight out of a bad ’80s hair band video, and felt St. Patrick’s Day came early: Savers. I can’t wait to do the slow-mo crawl through dry ice while wearing it.

Other magical finds include a quilted bag with a long chain handle from the ’60s and a billowing tunic from the ’70s.

It’s rare to find new trends at the thrift store. But trends just make you trendy. And, as Macklemore and Ryan Lewis have asserted in their hit song “Thrift Shop,” “I wear your granddad’s clothes. I look incredible.”

But not everyone gets it. I rocked a thrift shop look out with some colleagues recently and felt people, not undressing me, but re-dressing me with their eyes. A Nike Air sweatshirt circa 1990 with gargantuan apache chandelier earrings and wrists stacked in ghetto gold made a group of Old Navy supporters a tad uncomfortable. They’d have much rather seen their friend in colored skinny jeans and an oversized scarf, like those nice mannequins at The Limited.

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen your husband look better than you,” one of them noted.

The one movie buff in the crowd, a guy from rural Michigan who rocks sports bar T-shirts without irony, was the sole member of the group who understood the look for which I aimed.

“You look very ‘Do the Right Thing’ tonight,” he said.

Ding, ding, ding! The 1989 flick inspired my look, head to toe. It didn’t matter that the observant friend had no idea about the influence this movie had on the clothes, sneakers and jewelry of the hip-hop community then and now. That he made the connection, like a preschooler playing the matching game, was a win in itself.

That’s exactly why it all makes a girl feel so lucky. Next-to-nothing cost and heaping servings of style produce more than just a satisfied customer. Thrift stores make shopping fun.

Contact Xazmin Garza at xgarza@reviewjournal.com
or 702-383-0477. Follow her on Twitter @startswithanx.