Thrift shopping in Los Angeles has been totally corrupted. The other morning when I went to St. Vincent's to see if I could get a better price on the remaining "entertainment center" that matched the one swiped from me there was a girl there with a mountainous shopping cart who bought ALL the purses behind the counter where they keep the good stuff. As one of them was very cute and I would have liked to have it for my own, this annoyed me. Ofcourse, seeing as I'd just lost my "entertainment center" and was therefor suffering a setback to both my garden project and my wallet I simply wasn't in the most forgiving mood. Obviously she's got a shop somewhere and will take that mountain of booty and mark it up 150%. There's something about knowing it was right there a minute ago where I could have bought it for $10 that makes it unacceptable to pay $30 for it somewhere else tomorrow.
I can't decide if I love or hate (strong word, unnecessary) the vintage shops all over the place where everything is both cute and out of my price range. There was a time when I could leave the Salvation Army, or similar, with two garbage bags full of very cute clothes priced at $3 a piece. I used to have a small collection of great faux fur coats that I purchased from warehouse sized thrift stores that stocked everything and catered to no one in particular. I still find the occasional pair of leather boots that fit perfectly for $4 (r.i.p. burgundy boots lost to the puppy years, sob...) or the occasional cute blouse or dress. But they're fewer and further between now that everyone and their mother has a vintage shop or an etsy shop or an ebay shop. They swoop in bright and early when I (used to be) at work and buy all the good stuff. This, in fact, is one of the many good reasons that I off and on think about moving far away. Somewhere where there is still plenty of untouched thrifting potential.
I think that besides seeing the girl with the mountainous shopping cart and ALL of the purses, the other thing that inspired today's thrift ennui is that I watched Broken Enlgish (twice) the other day. I always love Parker Posey but this is my absolute favorite film. It's very romantic but the story is so believable as possible in reality and Melvil Poupaud is sooooo adorable! (sigh....) And, ofcourse, Parker Posey wears the cutest outfits which are likely not thrifted but probably are mostly designer, but her clothes remind me a lot of styles I used to be able to find in thrift stores. Above is still from the movie of Parker (and Drea DiMatteo) in a cute blouse and here is the very handsome Melvil, just because.
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