Through the Magical Monocle

Vintage Shopping for Dummies: How to get the Cutest Value Fur Your Money!

Raised on a thrifty budget, since i was a child. I was once ashamed to wear hand-me-down dresses from my older cousins, once i even inherited a bathing suit from my mother’s coworker’s wife, this bathing suit was so big and stretched out by the time i salvaged it, that my mother had to put a scrunchie around the straps just to make it stay on, except when I’d jump in the water, the elastic would stretch and my hand-me-down bathing suit would often fall off. When we’d shop at a store for something that was brand new, i could only every chose from the clearance rack, and most times we’d go to Little India in London for all my birthday dresses. I used to look like a Hindi Cuban but my mother didn’t care, dresses in Little India were cheap and negotiable. My shoes were always AT LEAST two sizes too big (not exaggerating), stuffed with cotton balls on the toe cap just so that they would last me for years to come; as my feet grew, the cotton balls were slowly removed and i literally grew into them. I remember I went to a really poor public school, still everyone else in my class seemed to have cooler stuff than me. Katie Bowman in my seventh grade class wore all the new outfits from C&A and I would so wish her mom would kidnap me and take me on a shopping spree, but that never happened.

Ironically, as an adult, when i came into my own money, I could have indulged in new fashionable haute couture, obsessing with the next trend as a way to repudiate the shame from years of financial hardship that forced my family to become frugal; but instead, I grew into a very low maintenance, thrifty young lady. Still to this day, I buy most of my clothes at thrift stores, flea markets and vintage shops. I will bargain, negotiate, inspect garments for tears, tarnishes, stains, rips, broken zippers, and use all of those as bargaining chips in pleading my case for a lower price.

There’s Lot’s of “Vintage” shops out there, how do you know which are the GOOD ones?

Smell: How does it smell once you walk inside. The smell is a good indicator of how much the shop owner cares about their inventory. The really passionate sellers LOVE the garments so much, they get washed and steamed, so when you walk into a store, it should smells clean and bounty fresh. If it smells like someone’s dirty yoga pants after a Bikram class, then that’s the first sign for you (the customer) to tread lightly, touch carefully, try on- ONLY if you must! and be sure to wash your hands after you leave.

Sight: Read the labels. the legitimate vintage shops will have garments with authentic old labels, worn out, washed out, fading; this is a good sign. Some stores however, will try to pass off H&M crap or Forever 21 junk that may appear to be vintage and they will just cut the tag off the item as to confuse the customer. This is gangsta! (and not in a good way). So if you see cut out tags, missing sizes this can be questionable. Also some stores try to pass off cheap Halloween costumes as authentic vintage apparel. Look at the inseams and stitches and you will be able to tell quality from shit. A store that also takes pride in their items will often mend broken zippers, holes, tears, etc. so look out for these too as you sift through the merchandize. It is ok to pay $40 for a piece that has been dry-cleaned/steamed, mended, and cared for, but don’t pay $40 for a smelly H&M dress you could have gotten for $10 on clearance two seasons ago!

Touch: After the store has passed the smell and sight test, make sure you touch the garments, first to feel the texture; close your eyes, does it feel like expensive quality fabric? or cheap and synthetic fibers such as acrylic, polyester and nylon? You want to put things on your body that are loving and natural to it, and if you ABSOLUTELY must have that polyester dress, then you shouldn’t pay more than it’s worth…which is…not very much!

Try it ON: So it passed all the above! Now it’s time to try it on. Even if it looks a bit too big or too small, don’t trust the sizing, people had different body shapes back then, and sizes are arbitrary anyways, so don’t be discouraged if the dress says Small and you are a Medium, or if it says Large and you are an Extra Small. TRY IT ON ANYWAY! You may be pleasantly surprised. Also if you really find a dress or garment that works for you, that is good quality material, exotic or unique textile and design; etc. even if it is a little too big you can always take it to a tailor to adjust it for your body type, and it may still be cheaper than buying a dress at Anthropologie which are ultimately generic and boring since anyone can buy them, yours will be ONE of a kind and fitted to your measurements! But it is important that it passes all other tests first, because if it is made out of cheap fabric, it may not be alterable, it may fray, or fall apart, or cost more to fix than the garment may actually be worth, so make sure it passes all tests first.

Leave It Alone: Part of being a thrifty shopper is leaving your finds alone. It’s almost as if you are gambling with the universe in a sense. Ok, so sometimes when you find something you love, you just snatch it up right there and then; but MOST times, even if you really like an item (especially if it will need alterations, and fixes), you want to try it on and leave it in the store for a day or two. Maybe ask the employee to hold it for you, and if they won’t hold it, then leave it to chance. I find that Vintage buying can be very impulsive. We see something we like and we don’t think it exists anywhere else so we wanna get it and are willing to pay high price for it. This is silly, the person selling it should be just as lucky to get rid of it, as you are to own it (if not more!). NEGOTIATE! To you it’s the dress of a lifetime, you can see yourself walking through Paris in it with faux fur and Jackie O sunglasses, but THEY (the store owners/employees) don’t know this. Play it down, and don’t play it interested. Leave the garment for a few days and say you will think about it. If they don’t want to hold it, ask for a discount there and then, and if they refuse just walk away; if it is meant for you, it will be there when you come back 48 hours later. Many times, you will also realize that you forgot all about it, and change your mind. When this happens, as a courtesy I will call the store and tell them to take it off hold. But Vintage Shops aren’t like regular shops, once you buy it, you OWN it and there is no refunds, returns or exchanges, so waiting two days is a good way to be sure and not disparage your cash, plus it gives the store owner an incentive to offer you a discount or some sort of deal. I NEVER pay full price (as marked) for USED garments. These are only worth the value we give them, ultimately they are OLD, just cause we are in LOVE with them, doesn’t make them more valuable, so if you are willing to pay $80 for it, that’s what you’ll pay, but if you offer $50 and come back in two days, you may just get what you bargained for!

When I was Poor: Stories that made a Frugal Thrifty Cuban Thrive! PART 2

When I was Poor: Stories that made a Frugal Thrifty Cuban Thrive! Part 2

On weekends we’d drive around Kensington, Regents Park and Hyde Park. My mother had figured out that wealthy Brits threw out perfectly good furniture onto the streets on a regular basis; stuff that to them was old and in need of shiny brand new replacements, to my family would look like perfect treasures for our house. We’d drive around the city in the mornings and fit our finds in the trunk, then spent the afternoon re-arranging our new found furniture at home.

One time we found a fridge on a street corner, between the three of us (my mom, my stepdad and me) we managed to haul it onto our car and get it back to our apartment; but since we already had a fridge in our kitchen, my parents decided this massive fridge would go in a corner in their bedroom; they had adopted a fridge in their sleeping quarters, like a normal person might adopt a boudoir or an armoir. They even put family photos on top, as if to camouflage it. Now, every time Sainsburys had a special deal, or my mother wanted to overstock on dessert, we had a whole other fridge to fill with things we didn’t need.

Coming from a lack mentality I’m sure having two fridges relieved her anxiety around being a provider, it gave her comfort knowing that if  a big catastrophe were to occur, we’d all be set to survive on our resources. This used to happen to people who lived through World War II or The Great Depression; at the fear of not having supplies they would stock surplus cans of goods even long after the war/depression had ended. For my family, there was no war, but coming from financial scarcity and rationed portioning of food where your quota is based on your age and the size of your family, it must have given my mother great relief to know that we had not one, but two fridges stocked with nourishment should we ever find ourselves in dire need.

On celebratory days, we’d go out to eat at buffet restaurants. Like Americans have Pizza Hut, Brits had Deep Pan Pizza Co, an all-you-can-eat cheap pizza joint where adults ate for $2.99 and children under 12 years old, ate free. While I loved going out to such a fancy feast it always embarrassed me when my mother would lie to the hostess about my age and say i was 11 even though i was nearing 14; the hostess would look me up and down as if trying to catch my mother’s lie on my face, i would smile bright revealing my charming overbite, she’d find this endearing and seat us. My mother would then order one adult buffet meal and one child as she loudly complained to the waiter that she was on a diet and could not eat anything at the restaurant. Whenever the staff wasn’t looking in our direction, mom would pinch me under the table and whisper the items she wanted me to put on my plate for her to eat. I thought we were so cheap. If you thought $2.99 per person was a deal, my entire family ate for $2.99! To make things worse, my mother would bring clean tupperware from home in her big fake leather purse, and she’d go to work under the table, smuggling enough pizza, lasagna and cookies for dinner that night and lunch the next day. One time the restaurant manager caught us and practically held us hostage by refusing to let us leave without at least paying for a second adult meal, but my mom’s quick wit and negotiation tactics spun the manager’s brain in circles so hard that he ended up dumbfounded, disoriented and feeling like he should have paid US to eat there, instead of the other way around! I think we might have even gotten a full refund that day, my mother was gloating as we walked toward the car.

When I was Poor: Stories that made a Frugal Thrifty Cuban Thrive! PART 1

When I was Poor: Stories that Made a Frugal Thrifty Cuban Thrive!

I come from an immigrant family. In 1989, two months after my seventh birthday my parents were sent on a “mission” to London; and everything i knew of life was swept from under my little feet as we boarded a plane from Havana International to Heathrow Airport. Not my first time on a plane, but my first time being uprooted and forced to leave my world behind, my friends, my grandmother, my school,  my neighborhood.

In London i was an alien. Didn’t speak the language, nor share the customs. I didn’t even look like most of the girls my age. They had pale white skin, yellow rotting teeth, long blonde hair, skinny legs and round bellies. I had olive skin, a pearly white overbite, un-brushed tomboy brown hair (that my mother had forced me to cut real short in Cuba because she didn’t know how much something like that would cost in a capitalist country), a tiny waist and a woman’s thighs (though i was just a young girl).

The first few months my parents worried i had become a mute, I barely spoke, just wrote long romantic letters home to my friends and grandmother, describing my despair and isolation in this place that was so unfamiliar and reminiscing about the life i had left behind. In this country I couldn’t play hide and seek on the street with all the kids on my block, they didn’t have tropical rainstorms, power outages or mangoes, the neighbors didn’t scold me if they saw me being mischievous, they just looked the other way. It was so cold and lonely here.

We lived in Camden Town; this area is now considered the hipster London, but we lived there when it was poor. I was afraid to walk home from school alone because back then it wasn’t the safest neighborhood but i had to get used to it since my parents worked long hours and couldn’t afford a babysitter.

I was home alone from the time school got out till hours after the sun set. Our house was my palace where i could do whatever i wanted but since my parents had so much trust in me, i was generally a good kid. My after school snack consisted of a couple of bowls of cereal while watching ThunderCats, He-Man, Shera, Scooby-Doo, The Flinstones, and Jem and the Holograms (my favorite)! These cartoons were awesome! They weren’t like the Russian ones i was used to on Cuban television, but they were entertaining just the same. Right around the time Full House started at 7pm my parents would be arriving and joining me on the couch. We’d enjoy hours of television together and i was even allowed to stay up and watch R-Rated movies, they treated me like a little adult.

Dinners always consisted of rice, meat and a small salad (with onions- Cubans love onions on their salads); and we CANNOT have a meal without rice, it would be like having a bike without pedals or a school without teachers, it just doesn’t make any sense in our brains. We gained a lot of weight collectively. Having come from a country where food was scarce to a place where variety was plenty, my mom collected coupons like a hoarder might collect stuff; she was obsessive about it! and if something was on special at Sainsburys she’d buy not one, not two, but as many boxes as would fit in our fridge.

One time Sara Lee Cheesecake was on Special at Sainsburys and my mom bought so many boxes that we had to ask our Cuban neighbors if we could store some in their fridge because we didn’t have enough room in ours. (Good thing we had Cuban neighbors down the hall, cause had we only had Brits they might have thought my mother was a lunatic with 30 boxes of cheesecake, Cubans could at least empathize). Still, how embarrassing!!! My mother had bought so much Sarah Lee Cheesecake that every day, after EVERY meal we knew what to expect for dessert! We had SO much cheesecake in such a short period of time, that i was traumatized for life, still, to this day, i cringe at the sight of cheesecake and i am repulsed at the taste. As an adult, my friends who know about my past, have taken it upon themselves to prove to me that i can love cheesecake again, but nope, my disgust for cheesecake persists. i had so much of it, that it will likely last me a lifetime. Sometimes i think a part of it is psychological, that eating it reminds me of poverty and hardship, loneliness and isolation; this may be in part true; but NO ONE should EVER eat so much cheesecake!