Tag: thrift

When I asked Donya Humphrey what she was wearing, she said sheephisly, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” I was intrigued.

“I got it at a thrift store,” she said.

It turns out Humphrey is something of a thrift store expert. Which sort of explains how she could find a smocked-bodice maxi dress — something very big this summer — at a thrift store.

That’s not a knock on thrift stores; it’s just sometimes you have to work to find the good stuff.

“With thrift stores,” she says, “you could be in there for hours. I can do one in 30 minutes.”

Her secret?

“I skim. I look for colors or prints I like. You either look at the top of the rack or the bottom,” she says. “Sometimes the stuff falls off the hangers so it’s good to look at the bottom.”

Let me tell you: When Justin and I hit the Music Commission show Sunday at the Levitt Shell, we saw a lot of orange clothing in the crowd. We saw apricot, peach, something that can only be described as traffic-hazard orange, and this lovely tangerine. (Yes, I know this sounds more like a fruit salad than a day at the Shell, but what are you going to do?)

Keshia Williams told us she got both her summer dress and her purse at a thrift store.

“That’s about all I shop,” she said. “I can get more clothes — and better quality clothes — for my money.”