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Monday, February 21, 2011

What to wear while thrifting

Since I've had great luck finding nice clothes while thrifting, I thought I'd share some tips on how to dress while thrifting.

We are all super busy, and I am super conscientious of how I spend my time. These tips can help streamline the clothes buying process to make for a more successful trip. These same tips apply to shopping anywhere really. How you dress can make it more convenient to change quickly or to avoid long dressing room lines.

1. Wear slip on shoes. If you are someone who makes a lot of trips to the dressing room, this tip will save you a lot of time. Avoiding retying laces after each dressing room episode will shave a few minutes of each dressing room visit. This tip not only saves you time, but it also minimizes the time spent by a bored spouse who may be waiting for you.

Also, remember it can be a pain to remove tall boots in a confined space. So unless you are looking for items to wear with boots, try to avoid clothes shopping with boots on.


2. On a similar note, wear easily removable outer layers! For example, wear sweater that can be quickly pulled off (a cardigan would work as long as you don't feel you need to button and unbutton it each time it goes on and off).

And leave your jacket in the car if you can! Having to wrestle with multiple outer layers will add time to your dressing room visits. Plus, after throwing items on and off in a dressing room, you'll be super warm anyway. So you won't want to wear more layers.


3. Wear a body skimming shirt or tank. This is really important if you are looking for sweaters or blazers. A long sleeve shirt takes extra care to keep from bunching in a sweater or coat. With a slim-fitting top, you can try on sweaters and jackets without having to go the dressing room to remove awkward bulky layers. This tip alone can save you tons of time since dressing room lines can be long (if there even is a good dressing room option at your thrift store). There do tend to be lots of mirrors around thrift stores. So grab all the sweaters you want to try on, and park yourself in front of a mirror and try on the various pieces over your shirt.

4. Wear colors you are into at the moment. If you are looking to incorporate more mustard colors into your wardrobe, wear a mustard top so that you can buy things that coordinate well with it. Or wear a color top that you think would complement mustard so that you can try on mustard cardigans over said top and decide how well you like them. A lot of items look very different depending on what we pair them with.

5. Bring your own accessories. Do you like to belt tops? Well, a lot of thrift items may look huge on the hanger, but belted they'll look great on you. Wear a belt, or bring a belt in your purse (since if you wear a belt, you'll have to spend minutes undoing and redoing it every trip to the dressing room) to try on for these moments.

6. Wear clothes that are washable. Thrift stores aren't known for being the cleanest places. Some of the clothes are musty from storage. Whatever items you buy will be washed or dry cleaned. But, after going to a thrift store and sifting through musty clothes, you will probably want to wash the clothes you were wearing too! I realize this may be specific to me since I have a very sensitive sense of smell

7. Wear socks and bring foot pantyhose. When you're trying on shoes, you do not want to try them on barefoot. You don't know who has tried them on before, etc. This is why many shoe places have boxes of those disposable feet pantyhose. You might keep a couple next time so you can try on pumps when you're thrifting. Any shoes you buy, you'll want to disinfect, anyway - even if they're NWT. You don't know who has been trying on the shoes at the store and how clean those peoples' feet were.

That's it for now. I know quite a few of you thrift as well. Do y'all have any tips for what to wear while thrifting that would be helpful to add to this list?

5 comments:

Melissa said...

These are great tips! Also try to wear leggings and skirts or a dress, so that you can slip skirts and pants on and off quickly without having to fully undress.


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vintageglam1234 said...

I think this should be applied to not only thrift shopping but regular shopping as well. There's nothing worse and annoying than having to remove layers of clothing and accessories such as belts and then put them on again. I recommend wearing a loose fitted dress with no zippers, that you can easily throw on and off in the fitting rooms. It makes all the difference. And probably steer clear of skinny jeans - they are impossible to put on at home let along the change rooms!

skyfire said...

HAHAHAHA. I should have read this a day earlier. I wore tall boots while shopping - albeit at Anthro and not at a thrift store - and it was a giant pain to take them off to try on a shoe. I only recently started looking at a few thrift shops near me, so this is probably common sense for the rest of you - but don't wear a fancy looking coat. :P I spent the whole time thinking rather paranoidly that people might be wondering why I was slumming down there. (It was a cheap coat, though!)

Kimmie said...

Hi Lori! Thank you for the comment on my personal milestone on my blog. I love this look. Your tips will be very helpful when I start thrifting.

Anonymous said...

Cute outfit and thanks for the shopping tips!

Melanie@Unravelled Threads
Follow @UnraveldThreads on twitter!

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