RESALE : Bargain Heaven
Vanda Krefft wanted to change her image with an expensive, intimidating wardrobe. But even at sale prices, says the free-lance writer, she couldn’t afford the designer clothing she had in mind.
“I wasn’t looking for a $100 blouse reduced to $10 or $15. I could afford the $100 blouse. I was looking for quality. I wanted really well-made clothes.”
Enter a friend who introduced Krefft to the world of resale clothing and accessories, where previously owned clothing is left on consignment. If it sells, the profit is generally split 50-50 between store owner and consignor. In the frugal ‘90s, resale shopping is a world whose time appears to have arrived, for men and women.
At Jean’s Stars’ Apparel in Sherman Oaks, Krefft assembled a 20-piece wardrobe for about $1,600. Among the treasures she found: an Yves Saint Laurent silk-taffeta blouse for $30 (“it’s the kind of thing that would be at least $400 or $500 “), a Jean Muir black suede dress for $95, and a Donna Karan vicuna jacket that had never been worn. Attached was a Bullock’s tag marked $1,390. Krefft paid $250.
Any stigma associated with wearing previously owned clothing is swiftly evaporating. Trudy Miller, owner of a Chicago consignment store and president of the National Assn. of Resale and Thrift Shops, says the industry is growing 10 to 15% a year--a figure she bases new store openings.
By contrast, more traditional thrift stores with bargain-basement prices, such as the Salvation Army and Goodwill Industries of Southern California, report a year-end drop in sales. Administrators blame the decline in customers on competition from discount stores, and the decline in donations on tax laws that make it less tempting to be charitable.
Not only are would-be donations ending up in resale stores, but the customer is changing too.
“The consignor is beginning to do more shopping,” says Miller. “Years ago, they would just drop the clothes off. Now they’re buying. But I don’t think it has to do with a lack of money. It has to do with being a smart shopper.”
Janet Snyder, owner of Jean’s Stars’ Apparel, a store her mother started 34 years ago, says 1991 sales were up 21% over 1990--even though stars no longer consign their castoffs here. “Although we did start out with a celebrity clientele,” she says, “today our better clothes come from socialites.”
“Celebrities don’t have as many clothes as people think,” notes Joyce Brock, owner of The Place & Co. in Los Angeles. “I get clothing from the industry-executive wives. Those women are even more social than the celebrities.”
Brock’s 4,000-square-foot store is among the largest of its kind in the country, and, like many high-end resale shops, its inventory includes a high concentration of small-size garments--”lots of Size 4s.” Labels include Adolfo, Armani, Chanel, Calvin Klein and Valentino, and prices range from $200 to $600.
Brock says she took in “more top designer resale than ever last year. A lot of women who haven’t sold before are selling now.”
Although there are fewer resale stores for men, they, too, are taking on more consignments. At Bailey’s in Pasadena, owner Monika Bailey is surrounded by Hugo Boss, Giorgio Armani and Nino Cerruti menswear. Many are little-used items from television productions. Others, she says, come from “compulsive shoppers who wear something only once.”
Clothes also arrive in the arms of wives. One woman recently consigned about 100 Alexander Julian shirts. “She said her husband doesn’t wear them any more. Of course, that’s one of my little nightmares,” Bailey says. “That an irate husband will come in yelling, ‘My wife gave you my favorite shirt!’ ”
A more typical customer is 27-year-old Derricke Lockhart , a firefighter hooked on resale treasure hunting. Lockhart says he started shopping thrift stores when he was 18, at his mother’s suggestion. Now he has graduated to Bailey’s, which he checks out “at least once a week,” looking for something “that’s going to demand attention.”
One 42-year-old Beverly Hills real estate agent recently put together a substantial wardrobe for $444 at the “Couture and Not So Couture New and Little Used Clothing Sale for Men & Women,” which benefits the Westside Center for Independent Living in Santa Monica. The man, who asked that his name not be used, bought five sport coats (three of them hand-tailored Donegal tweeds), two suits, four pairs of slacks, one “real nice leather belt,” one tie, a pair of cotton-gabardine walking shorts and two pairs of black Levi’s 501s.
Patricia Benson, who owns Gentlemen’s Exchange and Everything for Kids in Torrance, even sells gently worn boxer shorts “to men who live in wonderful houses and can afford to buy new. A lot of them tell you they want to save a buck. They might be zillionaires who could easily go out and buy $500 suits.”
At Recycled Rags in Corona del Mar, owner Audrey Patterson says customers range from “secretaries to millionaires’ wives to the millionaire. Everybody loves a bargain.”
The last Sunday of every month, Patterson holds parking lot sale with free refreshments and prices marked down 40% on merchandise that has been in the store more than 30 days. While women might snap up Donna Karan and Escada designs immediately, she says, men “are prone to come in, look at things and wait until they go on sale.”
None of this surprises Allison Cohen, a consumer expert for the New York advertising agency Ally & Gargano . As Cohen talks by telephone, she says is she is wearing a previously owned Mexican jacket. “I hadn’t even realized how much of this shopping I’ve been doing over the years, because I’ve done it to add a sense of uniqueness to my wardrobe.”
But there is more to the equation in the ‘90s. “For me, it’s not that I couldn’t afford to go to Bloomingdale’s and buy the Chanel,” Cohen says. “It’s that I don’t want to pay the full price. You feel you’re being taken if you pay full price. Everyone wants to know they’re getting a deal.”
For Vanda Krefft, shopping for deals in her favorite resale store is fun, “almost like being in a club. I’m hooked. I couldn’t go back to regular retail.” Certainly not after finding what she always wanted: “The wardrobe of my dreams.”
