Vintage pillboxes.
Gucci bag circa late '70s/early '80s.
I first started vintage-ing and thrifting in high school when before, going to shows, my best friend Meg and I would make requisite stops on a row of thrift stores to scrounge for baggy men’s trousers and fitted beaded cardigans — a very Annie Hall, pseudo post-punk affectation if there ever was one. Lately, I’ve been into digging around the outdoor Rose Bowl flea market where, most recently, I picked up some vintage postcards, pillboxes and a Gucci bag from the late ’70s/early ’80s (see above). You can also find Janet Jackson posters circa the “Control” era, unicorn pendants, and framed pictures of super-seductive centaurs who, upon closer examination, look a lot like Josh Hartnett. Flea markets are magical.
Secondhand shopping makes you reevaluate what it means to buy something “new.” Without those sturdy fancy bags — with handles and everything! — thrift store/vintage shopping usually means you’re carrying your secondhand silk scarves in a logo-less plastic shopping bag or toting around trinkets at the bottom of your oversized purse. The “glamour” of something brand spanking un-new is tarnished yet charming — if your shopping bag is any evidence — because while whatever you picked up is new to you, it was old(er) to someone else and probably needs a good Febrezing or two, not to mention a couple of disinfecting wipes. Shopping in the recession and digital age usually means scouring the web for the best deal and then anxiously awaiting a UPS package to pop up at the door, but flea marketing is all about the art of the unknown, unexpected and inexpensive: Good deals abound and one-of-a-kinds are the norm.
Some people are ardently opposed to all of this which I can understand. It’s a little unnerving to be walking in someone’s old trousers or sipping chai from a single porcelain tea cup that, at one point, used to be part of a set and most likely, like, an actual home. I draw the line at buying old underwear (shudder) because residual herpes isn’t worth it, even at a discount. But I tend to think of these items as little orphans of someone’s life that I’ve effectively “rescued,” with cash no less, and take in as my own. I’m not sure of their origins or their “lives” previous (how’s that for a little shopping anthropomorphism!?) but I’d like to think they were interesting and meaningful. And herpes-less.
