Was browsing at the bookstore when I saw Thrifting Magazine attractively priced at $18. That gets you “America’s Best Cities To Thrift!”, a list of thrift chain stores, “Items Never To Buy At Thrift Stores” (underwear! half-used cosmetics!), a story about a guy who found something improbable like a Fabrege egg or dinosaur skull (I forget what it was, maybe more mundane), and a back pat for being “socially and environmentally conscious” (which is not quite true).
I was wondering who would buy this magazine? Macklemore’s mother?
Only thing I learned was the slightly disturbing suggestion that a Size Zero women’s dress today is bigger than a Size Eight dress was in the 1950s. Which may or may not be true. I’m not really sure what that means.
Well yeah. I mean, even at a thrift shop I am unlikely to pay more than $15 out of principle. They did show pictures of “some trendy LA thrift shops!”. But paying $90 for an old wooden Coke box ain’t thrifting.
Some blame “vanity sizing”… Women like smaller numbers. But women are bustier and bigger too. In medical school, problems still used “the average sized adult man of 70kg=154 lbs.”which only describes a modest fraction of them, at least in my province.
Almost as lacking in self-awareness as the issue of Ad Busters I bought a couple of decades ago only to find the pages of anti-mercantile rhetoric regularly interspaced with progressively more obnoxious advertisements for their shitty “AD BUSTERS!!!” sneakers “MADE WTH RECYCLED TIRE TREAD AND POLYESTER FROM GROCERY BAGS!!! GET YOURS NOW NOW NOW!!! OR ELSE BE PERPETUALLY BRANDED A REACTIONARY CRYPTO-FASCIST!!!”
Meanwhile, the ghost of Abbie Hoffman looms over abandoned shopping malls still soundlessly imploring non-existent shoppers to steal his book.
We Google thrift stores when we visit a new place, so I can kind of see the appeal, though not at $18. I’ll look for it in the magazine section of one of the thrift stores we go to.
There are plenty of examples of finding treasures in thrift stores on both the American and British versions of Antiques Roadshow.
As for clothes sizes, my wife has a problem buying jeans. The same style of jeans comes in different sizes (in terms of fit) depending on where it was manufactured. Lees, not Levis. Someone doesn’t have good control over their factories.
That surprises me. I’m a guy, and though clothes sizes are not as complicated for me as for women, the usual S-M-L-XL sizes for upper body wear are random enough to confuse me sometimes (I’m a skinny small guy, but I’ve had t-shirts in all those sizes). But in my experience, jeans are always labeled in inches, first waist size and second length. So I always know that a pair of jeans sized 30-30 or 30-32 fits me perfectly (I’ve never had significant weight changes in adulthood). Is this different for women’s jeans sizes?
Oooooh yes. You have your sizes XS-XXXL or 0 to 32, and they mean nothing specific, just general. Length is Short or petite, regular, tall or long and they are also not specific. And then some stores have their own sizing system like Torrid which is size 0-5 (10-32, roughly) but not always (their pants are often sized with actual 10-32).
I’ve never had a problem when ordering the same style and size of Levi’s. Always fit perfectly. The fit does change when you change styles, but that is to be expected. But my wife has had multiple problems.
One example of how well stocked stores are better than on line. But well stocked is the thing. I order on line because the stores are always out of my very average sizes.
That sucks. Really, it’s not the most egregious example, but another everyday thing that sucks only for women with no reason at all. Also, I’m an engineer (EE, not textile engineer, fortunately), and such a system goes against everything I learned and honor about defining dimensions and standards.
Thrift store sizes are often one higher or lower than expected. People sometimes get rid of stuff for a reason…
I have the body of someone who has power lifted for thirty years. I can usually find something that fits pretty well in a thrift store or online; just sometimes in regular stores (for certain things).
Even in mens’ pants, measured in inches, you can get maybe an inch of variability from one brand to the next (that is to say, any given man might own pants that fit him equally comfortably that are listed as one inch above or below his usual). But a variation of one inch out of 40ish is a lot better than one company’s 0 being a different company’s 8, or whatever: A man who knows his size can just walk into a store and find some things that he knows will be at least close.
By the way, useful trick for fitting lower garments (pants and skirts), especially in thrift shops, rummage sales, and the like: Fit the waistline around your forearm. There’s some variation from person to person, of course, so you’ll need to calibrate with a garment that you know fits you well, and then make a fist, half-fist, etc. as needed.
