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Wednesday , September 8, 2010
HOW TO LIVE: Tips on Reselling Clothes At Secondhand Shops
A few weeks ago I got a few queries on Twitter and in real-life (OMG wozzat?!) on reselling clothes on Ebay and at resale and consignment shops. I didn't realize till I rattled off all my tips and advice that I actually had a lot of experience with this, so I thought I'd share here once and for all--just so I can say "Don't you read my blog?!!!" in my best accusatory manner to the next person who asks me about this. Kidding! I just thought since it's fall and a changing-of-the-seasons, this might be useful to people cleaning out their closets right now. Also, it's a new moon in Virgo, and if THAT isn't an auspicious time to renew your wardrobe, I don't know what is!
Reselling clothes is a minor but fine art in the stakes known as fashion-on-the-cheap, and if you do it right, it's a valuable strategy in keeping a wardrobe updated, refreshed and in a state of I'm-never-bored-with-my-clothesness. I'm only going to cover reselling at brick-and-mortar resale shops, the kind where you bring your used clothing haul in and get credit or cash for your stash--but pipe up in the comments if you want to read any Ebay- or consignment-specific stuff, or if you have your own advice about reselling clothes.
First off, my own experience with reselling has been pretty intense but rewarding. For the past few years (!!!) I've been on a serious wardrobe-reorganizing tear that has actually been totally awesome for my soul in ways that I haven't even anticipated. It's kind of remarkable to realize it--especially considering the rather baroque state of my closet a few years ago--but I have lived out of a beautifully-organized suitcase (yes, SUITCASE) for the past four months and have felt totally satisfied with my fashion stuff. And when you feel happy with your wardrobe, you buy a lot less, and clothes aren't a source of guilt, annoyance or self-loathing--they're 100% fun. Reselling clothes has been key in my whole "Zen wardrobe" approach, helping me to get rid of stuff I no longer want and need and still get decent value for it, and it's helped me to reinvent and renew the basis of my wardrobe in a ecofriendly, inexpensive way.
So, here's some of the best advice that I have when I help others resell:
WHEN TO RESALE VS. WHEN TO EBAY
I find that it's a question of volume here--if you've got only a few good-value items (i.e., good quality, in-season and designer-y) , I'd Ebay them if you're so inclined. You'll get a better return on Ebay if you market your item right, and you don't have to trek out to a resale shop for just a few items. But it's a pain in the ass to list lots of items, so if you've got a bunch of clothes or are looking to rid yourself of lots of stuff at once just to make some room, take it to a brick-and-mortar resale shop. Even if they don't take everything, often they'll have their own "donate" pile to take to traditional charity-shops, which will save you an additional trip to Goodwill.
KNOW THE SHOP & CALL AHEAD
It pays to visit the shop in question and check out what they're selling and who they're selling to. Some secondhand shops tend to specialize in younger clientele looking for designer and trendy clothing; others in more professional and working clothing, and others do only vintage, sometimes of the high-end variety. Do some research via online city guides or Yelp.com or wherever to find out the "retail landscape" of your particular city or town. If you can't visit, pick up a telephone (OMG wozzzat?) and call to ask. Most buyers are usually pretty upfront about this stuff--they don't want to waste time sifting through a bunch of stuff that isn't right for their market, and it'll save you time and energy not schlepping stuff that won't work for that particular store.
While you're on the phone, ask if they have particular buying times, if they prefer you make appointments to see a buyer (esp. if you have a really large amount of clothes to unload), ask about their clientele, what they're looking for at the time you want to sell, what their compensation is (cash, store credit, check if your items sell after a certain point), what sizes they take (I know, sad, but it's true that some stores prefer smaller sizes), and if they'll take any particular items you may have questions on (like, you have a Chanel jacket, but it's got a rip in the seam...etc.) It's a pain in the butt to haul stuff, so be a Girl Scout and prepare yourself by getting all your questions answered so you don't have to bring in unnecessary items.
SEASONS ARE IMPORTANT
Retail is all about supply and demand, and a key piece of advice I give about reselling is to sell only what season the resale shop is buying for. It doesn't matter if you're selling a fabulous Max Mara coat--if you're trying to get rid of it in the middle of July, it mostly likely will not fly. You have to realize that stores have to store stuff physically, and each item they take in must go fast. Maybe some shops may take it, but you won't get the value you're looking for. Call first and ask what season the resale shop is buying for. And if you're just looking to unload stuff fast, then sell unseasonal items on Ebay or wait till you can get rid of them in season. Sometimes if it's a great item, a store will take your out-of-season clothes, but you won't receive the highest value you can get out of it. But again, call ahead and ask: every store manages inventory differently. One time I called in the summer just to ask if a store was buying for fall yet, and it ended up they were looking for cold-weather coats and jackets for some charity initiative and I got a nice penny digging them up from the back of my closet.
MAKE SURE IT'S ALL CLEAN AND IN GOOD CONDITION
This actually makes a big difference in my experience. I've had wrinkled or unwashed stuff (DON'T LECTURE, I WAS IN A HURRY!) that didn't get picked up one time, but then a good cleaning or dry-clean got it accepted the next time I swung by. Buyers tend to eyeball stuff pretty quickly since they have so much to go through, so make it easy for them to spot your gems.
SELL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WEEK
This is really about selling during that sweet spot when the store isn't as busy and the inventory has been a bit more emptied from the weekend's sales. Whatever the reason, I find selling generally on a Tuesday or Wednesday ups your chances of getting more of your stuff accepted for selling, and selling on a weekend? Forget it. But every store has its own traffic patterns, so use your fancy phone and talk to a real-life human to find out when's the best time to bring something in. But it's been my general experience that non-peak times work best for selling.
AND A BIT ABOUT USING RESELLING AS A WAY TO EDIT AND TRANSFORM YOUR WARDROBE
At some point, if you're good at it and you make it a strategy on dealing with organizing your closet and wardrobe in general, reselling becomes a key piece of refining and maintaining your wardrobe. Basically my m.o. after My Great Closet Cleanout of Summer 2008 (which was an epic of epicness in its own right, I regret not documenting it for nogoodforme) was to really pare down my wardrobe and make sure every item was of such quality that I would love it forever and/or be able to sell it off at a decent resale value if I wasn't so in love with it anymore. Three fulltime years of classes and film school had taken their toll and my wardrobe was pretty much a hot mess. But a hot mess doesn't really work for a Manhattan closet, and something had to be done or else I was in danger of being pegged on the head by a random overstuffed bag of clothing every time I opened my closet door. Inspired by my beau at the time, who managed to go on tour with nothing but a tiny duffle bag of clothes and an extra pair of shoes, I was going to reinvent myself as a clothing minimalist even if it killed me.
It took forever and a lot more self-awareness and a wholesale reinvention of my shopping and consumption habits, which I won't get into here--but reselling became a key part of paring down in a happy, satisfying, non-hairshirt-y way. Basically at the beginning of the season I would clean out my closet for the season, figuring out what I didn't want or need anymore, and then I would unload the unwanted but cool items at Beacon's Closet or Buffalo Exchange. (I unloaded stuff like a Rick Owens sweater and a Chloe blazer--I'm sure someone out there is super-happy with them!) Taking the credit I got at those stores, I'd pick up anything that caught my fancy for the upcoming season and pretty much not buy anything new unless it was a genuine need. Doing this for a few consecutive seasons, I realized at some point that I basically buying clothes only out of the cash and credit I got via reselling, which was cool--it was ecofriendly, cheap and I still got to shop but it wasn't as toxic to my budget and didn't give me that icky feeling of being wasteful.
Of course, there are a few factors that made this work--namely, living in a great resale market like NYC and having access to great clothes in the first place. At any rate, I'm a huge fan of reselling clothes (and buying vintage and secondhand in general), so hopefully the above info will help out a few people who find the process mystifying or overwhelming.
(Don't ask me what the above graphic means. I found it on Google image search under "clothing racks." It's mystifying, no?)
Tags: closet management, ecofashion, living out of a suitcase, reselling clothes, wardrobe, Zen wardrobe
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by Kat in HOW TO LIVE
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Wednesday , August 11, 2010
Random Picture Entry: Meet the Sapeurs, The Congo's Most Dapper Gentlemen Ever
Sometimes you see an image that is so indisputably elegant and riveting that you just HAVE to find out everything about it. For me recently, it was when I stumbled upon some portraits, shot by Francesco Giusti, of these incredibly-dressed dandies from Congo-Brazzaville in the World Press Photo show I went to last week. (I can't reproduce the images here, but you can peek a gander at them at the World Press Photo winners gallery. These images are culled from various sources on the Internet.)
How could you NOT look at such incredible style? The tiny little description told me these dudes were sapeurs, members of a certain style cult of high-fashion dressing in the Congo called La Societé des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes. (Aside: how amazing would it be to put down "ambianceuse" on my passport as my occupation one day!) SAPE, as it's known by, emerged in the 1960s when Congolese would visit Paris and come back to Africa with the latest styles. According to the description, hardcore sapeurs apparently would save up money (for years, in some cases) in order to buy high fashion from the likes of Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Prada, Versace and the like. These stylin' dudes often became local celebrities because of their flair for fashion, and would even make appearances at weddings and funerals to lend an air of elegance and glamour to the proceedings. That's all that the caption stated, but judging from the richness of the images (and knowing this was Africa, one of the most geopolitically complex continents EVER--to completely understate it), I knew there was more to the story.
+ Continue reading "Random Picture Entry: Meet the Sapeurs, The Congo's Most Dapper Gentlemen Ever"
Tags: Africa, better than the Sartorialist, Congo, haute couture, La Societé des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes, sapeurs
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by Kat in Random Picture Entry
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Thursday , July 15, 2010
Random Picture Entry: Southwest Flight Attendants in the '70s
Did you know that, at some point in the '70s, Southwest Airlines' motto was "Sex sells seats," and the flight attendants wore white go-go boots and orange hot pants, and served sexy cocktails like Love Potion and Passion Punch? I didn't, until yesterday. How fun, in a problematic kind of way! I really hope Mad Men keeps going to at least 1972.
Another neat tidbit from airline fashion history: In 1965, Emilio Pucci designed uniforms for Braniff Air, which included astronaut-inspired helmets that the flight attendants found "very difficult to hear in."
Tags: airline fashion, Emilio Pucci, go-go boots, hot pants, Mad Men, the '60s, the '70s
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by Liz in Fashion
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Tuesday , July 13, 2010
Linda Ronstadt Is My Summer Style Idol
Something I learned last weekend is that I dress almost exactly like Julianne Moore's character in The Kids Are All Right. Which was cool and fun and a nice surprise, but now I'm gonna try to throw a Linda-Ronstadt-In-The-'70s sorta thing into the mix (having recently viewed about 87 zillion beautiful Linda-Ronstadt-In-The-'70s at She Darked The Sun, which remains my favorite non-NOGOODFORME.com place on the Internet). It starts with jeans and t-shirt and assorted smartly foxy accessories:
And then you move onto a sweet little mini-dress, with or without some far-out boots:
+ Continue reading "Linda Ronstadt Is My Summer Style Idol"
Tags: Linda Ronstadt, Robert Plant, Ronnie Wood, She Darked The Sun, summer, The Kids Are All Right, Van Halen
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by Liz in Fashion
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Wednesday , May 5, 2010
Imaginary Shopping Spree: It's May! Wear A Happy Gorgeous Yellow Dress!
Even a dark spirit like myself appreciates the sheer visual joy that a lovely, colorful frock is about! I'm in love with the canary yellow color and the vintage-y 30s/40s-ish styling of this Shabby Apple dress, and especially those flutter-y scalloping ruffles on the front. Add some red lips, and how could you not be the most gorgeous bit of sunshine ever incarnated as a human being? (P.S. - The orchid version is pretty hot, too, and better suited for my coloring -- but I just love staring at the yellow too much to not put it up here.)
Tags: dresses, happy and gorgeous, incarnating sunshine, Shabby Apple
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by Kat in Imaginary Shopping Spree
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Thursday , March 18, 2010
Inspirational Use of Knee Socks: La Garconne's Spring Lookbook
My Twitter is pretty much the only place where I like to post pictures of myself wearing "outfits." It's ridiculous, really -- this is a fashion blog, after all, and people like pictures of people! But I am moronically shy, and Twitter seems like a nice, quiet way to be an exhibitionist, nude spammers notwithstanding. This fall my "tweeple" (yeah, that's stupid to say, but I really hate saying "followers," it's not like I'm a cult leader or something!) were subjected to a spate of outfits featuring an unsually high usage of over-the-knee socks -- with dresses, shorts, skirts, all sorts of things. Basically my rule this fall was: if my knees were showing, I had a perfect opportunity to wear over-the-knee socks. And I was really a happy clam this fall, fashion-speaking, because knee socks are the best thing ever. Happily, spring is coming and I can't wait to get back to the sock-wearing! I was reminded of this when I took a gander at La Garconne's lookbook for spring 2010 -- lots of awesome sockage happening alongside the awesome clothing, of course. I wish I could have everything from La Garconne, their selection and general taste being perfectly Euro-gamine, but instead I'll just have to be content with stealing ideas instead of merchandise.
Tags: knee socks, La Garconne, spring, Twitter
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by Kat in Fashion
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Tuesday , March 16, 2010
Love: Bridge & Burn
I love a garment that is so simple and well-executed that it allows you to pretend you are beyond being stylish. It's the type of thing that usually only design snobs and people with acutely sensitive visual instincts can spot right away, and still others will just babble about "effortless chic" when you wear something so beautifully impeccable. But deep down, you know buying something as stealthily awesome as the spring outerwear collection from Bridge & Burn requires huge amounts of research and deliberation and communing with your inner-beingness to make sure that your outside is completely attuned and expressive of your soul. Oh, it's such hard work, being so "effortlessly stylish"! So I understand if you use this as a cheat sheet and just get this super-adorable librarian's jacket for yourself (and that other jacket for your favorite dude--because, hooray, a company that's a score for both boys and girls!) Sometimes life's as simple as seeing a cool picture of a cool jacket and going, "Damn, that's hot!" Because these jackets are: they're also chic, tasteful, classic and thoughtful. (Also: these are pretty reasonably-priced. CLINCHER!) It's okay. Fashion doesn't have to be so much work. These will make you look like you never work at it, you just are.
Tags: Bridge & Burn, effort, effortless, outerwear, work
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by Kat in Love
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Wednesday , March 3, 2010
A Day in the Life: Our Most Compliment-Attracting Pieces of Clothing TO QUOTE FAITH NO MORE: THIS ONE'S FOR THE LADIES IN THE HOUSE* Boys don't ever say anything about this dress, though. But girls sure do! Girls say it's so cute. "Thanks, girls," I reply, even if I'm talking to just one girl at the time. It's like that Spin story I read a few years back, where Chuck Klosterman wrote that Jenny Lewis is "fashionable in the way that women tend to appreciate more than men" - something I don't find all that true about Jenny Lewis, but find absolutely true about my dress. I wear it with knee socks and strappy flats, call myself "a go-go dancer on her way to Sunday school," and oh how the women appreciate it more than the men. (The women write sonnets and epic ballads and short films about my dress, and the men are all "Where's the tiger skirt?" Boys will be boys. They can't help it, the boys can't help it.) So, I bought my dress on new year's morning, at that Echo Park vintage store I can never remember the name of. I was in a shit mood, awake way too early, and that shop was really the only thing happening on Sunset Boulevard. I spent a real long time moping through the overstuffed racks and ended up with the dress even though it's nothing like anything I've ever worn - or maybe because it's nothing like anything I've ever worn, this being a new year and new decade and all. It didn't black out my black mood right away, but later on I went down to the beach and I was walking barefoot in my new year's dress and "Tomorrow Never Knows" came up on my iPod shuffle just as a bunch of seagulls flew past and screeched their "Tomorrow Never Knows"-y screech. My, what a comical beach you are!, I gasped to myself and then felt better about everything in the world, in some cool sorta way I can still access now whenever I need to. And later on that night I bought a bottle of champagne mostly because the label so perfectly matched my dress's seafoam green - which is something no stupid tiger skirt's ever been able to pull off, that's for damn sure. (Liz) *In the intro to their cover of "Easy" by the Commodores, duh. THE "COZY YET FEROCIOUS" ZEN OF A BLACK MOTORCYCLE JACKET The first time I ever wore a black motorcycle jacket, I was 14 years old and I was hanging out with this senior dude who had a Mohawk and wore chains around his neck and a leather biker jacket every day to class. He persecuted me in World History class by grabbing my hair and yelling "straw hair!" and belittling my opinions, and I kind of couldn't stand him. I don't mean this in a cute screwball-comedy way. I mean that I really loathed him, right down to the tips of his black combat boots. Normally things like combat boots and chains are cool, except when they are worn by a bully. Yet somehow I found myself in his orbit every so often. What can I say? I was 14 and my options were limited. I was also severely depressed for the one and only time in my life, and I didn't care much who I hung out with, as long as there was someone around. My simple yet brilliant logic was if someone was around, I wouldn't kill myself. That explained why the company surrounding me was all willy-nilly. (I mean, 14 years old was the last time I ever consented to go to a "Christian church group," you know? Like I said: willy-nilly.) Needless to say, 14 years old was the year in my life that I didn't really care what I looked like. I wore anything. I don't remember what I wore. Somehow, one dreary, depressing, horrible winter day in the most dreary, depressing, horrible year of my life, me and a few people were at this dude's house and he was lecturing us about Joy Division, being the most pedantic and annoying human being on the planet. It's almost a miracle that my love of Joy Division grew out of this moment, because he was making them seem really kind of awful and boring, which they probably could be if you heard them in the wrong state of mind. The room's arctic temperature didn't help, too. It was cold, I was hungry and lonely and all I had was a dude yapping at us in an egomaniacal torrent of pretention. It felt like I was in a scene out of a really weird, brainiac version of River's Edge, but this was before I realized there was a movie called River's Edge. (If you are living a scene out of River's Edge and you don't realize the movie's existence, you just think you are living in the most hopeless life ever. The lack of awareness of a previous cinematic representation approximating your life just makes your reality seem kind of bizarre and horribly singular. Which is why it was such a relief to discover that a movie like River's Edge even existed.)
This is not the most compliment-attracting piece of clothing in my wardrobe. It's not even in the top five! Maybe it's number 12. Number one is probably the zebra-striped knee-length polyester skirt I bought for $5 at Salvation Army last summer, which doesn't count, because the majority of those compliment-givers are boys. And boys are gross! (Some of them, anyway.) So of course they're going to praise you for wearing an animal-print stretchy-fabric'd item on the lower half of your body, and then stupidly refer to it as a "tiger skirt." And in your head you're all, "It's a fucking zebra, stupid," but out loud you just say "Thank you," politely but kinda curt, and then you keep walking.
+ Continue reading "A Day in the Life: Our Most Compliment-Attracting Pieces of Clothing"
Tags: black leather jackets, boys, champagne, Chuck Klosterman, depression, dresses, Faith No More, girls, go-go dancers, Jenny Lewis, Joy Division, River's Edge, seagulls, teenhood, tiger skirts, Tomorrow Never Knows, Venice Beach
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by Liz in A Day in the Life
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Wednesday , February 24, 2010
Dear Reader, Please Help Me Stop Loving Pretty Ballerina's Beautiful Flag Ballet Flats
You know how usually when you see something you can't have, it kills your soul a little but then within three to five days some self-preserving amnesia sets in and then everything's okay again?* I was sure as eggs is eggs that that's how it was all gonna go down with those Pretty Ballerina's ballet flats with the flags - but it's been at least a week since DailyCandy thrust the beautiful shoes into my life and I'm still not over it! And they're $275, and I can't, and it hurts. Make it stop hurting? Tell me something terrible about these impossible creatures? Like that they hate The Clash, or unabashedly support the Tea Party movement?
Or, you know, you could just buy them for me. That's also an option.
*To clarify: I'm only talking about shoes, not like boys or cakes.
Tags: ballet flats, boys, cakes, dealbreakers, desperation, self-preserving amnesia
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by Liz in Fashion
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Tuesday , February 23, 2010
Another Imaginary Shopping Spree: Tess Giberson's Fall 2010 RTW Show
Many, many moons and nogoodforme redesigns ago, I babbled on and on about Tess Giberson's show in 2003 (!!), so you can imagine how stoked I was to see her return with her namesake line to the latest Fashion Week in New York. Taking a few years to have a baby and design for TSE has kind of toughed up Giberson, but she still has that serene, unforced quality to her work that I loved in the first place. I'd wear everything in this line: it's kind of a perfect symbiosis of my Helmut Lang and A Detacher side. It's as if Giberson added a homespun air to the minimalist/urban template or skinny leggings, cool jacket and simple shirt. I couldn't be more thrilled or lustful about these clothes, and I WANT EVERYTHING. (Kat)
Tags: fashion shows, Tess Giberson
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by Kat in Imaginary Shopping Spree
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