114/ AMA: Tips For In-Person Resale Shopping, Finding Inspo In Your Closet + Tying Ankle-Tie Shoes
Part 1 of my summer 2024 AMA!
Happy Saturday to my fellow North Americans and a Happy Sunday to readers east of the UK!
Many thanks to everyone who submitted an AMA question in the chat over the last week. I’ll be answering some today and will be back in a few days with more! Watch your inboxes for Part 2.
But first, quickly, I was in San Sebastian a few days ago and there was a massive Zara attached to the FNAC where I had parked underground. I had about 15 minutes to spare before I needed to drive back to Biarritz to pick up my boys from camp, so I walked in and these two pieces caught my eye. I uploaded the try-on to Instagram stories and many people wanted the links, so here they are!
The “dress” on the right is actually a long top which I sized up two sizes to get more length. I LOVE the overall mini dress look but with my relatively long torso/shorter legs, my butt was dangerously close to hanging out. I think it would work well on someone who is petite and/or short torsoed!
Okay, onto the main event!
Q: I have exclusively shopped online for may years now, due to both geography and the lures of online resale in general. I am thinking of challenging myself to only shop in-person and secondhand (when I have access to do so). Do you have advice for shopping vintage in-person? How do you not get overwhelmed, and how do you make wise decisions on the fly? One of the pros of online (to me) is being able to try on in peace and without time constraints, so this is where I struggle with in-person even though I know it is superior in other ways.
A: I will get to the advice on resale shopping in the last half of my (very long) answer! But first, I have a couple of questions for you:
My first question — to your last sentence, if you can order, try-on and return an online purchase, couldn’t you also buy, try-on and return an in-store purchase as well? Is it because you have to travel to and from brick-and-mortar stores that this is difficult for you? Or are you buying online from big resellers like TRR with return policies, but buying in-person at local businesses where there are usually no returns? Please let me know in the comments so I can better understand!
My second question — out of curiosity, why do you want to “challenge yourself” to shop in-store in the first place? Is it to slow down your shopping, support local businesses, a human touch, or something else?
A natural by-product of shopping in-person is that it will slow down your shopping. Every step of the in-store process takes time: getting in your car (or onto public transport), parking, walking from store to store, manually flipping through racks, waiting to pay and — eek — having to make conversation with the sales associate. Contrast this to shopping online where you can instantly toggle between store websites and product pages, and not have to talk to anyone.
“How do you not get overwhelmed, and how do you make wise decisions on the fly?”
I’m going to answer this part of your question by referring to one of my Buying Mistakes I’ve Made articles (because I’ve made many!):
As someone who regularly shops second-hand, I would be remiss to not mention it here. There are two pressures at play: because consignment and vintage shops usually sell one-off pieces, it’s tempting to convince ourselves to get something because you believe you’ll never find something like it again, and especially at the lower price it’s being sold at.
I continued:
What I’ve Learned: We live in a world where we’re constantly bombarded with messages and pressures to buy; it’s so easy to get caught up in the frenzy and a scarcity mindset.
If you can, step back, take a minute, and reflect on the Five Questions. I’ve found that if I miss out on a find or a deal, sure, I may have some mild FOMO, but it’s actually very rare for me to really regret it in the long term. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal. And the crazy part is: there is so much clothing out there — and more coming down the pipeline — that there’ll always be more to buy. But that’s another newsletter for the future.
I guess this my way of saying, at the end of the day, try not to put pressure on yourself to make a decision to buy then and there. If you’re in doubt about buying something (and there are no returns), leave it behind. If you keep thinking about it and it’s still in the store when you return, great! If not, rest assured that there is so much (too much, really!) out there, and something will come along for you.
“Do you have advice for shopping vintage in-person?”
As for shopping resale in-store, these are the steps I take to make the process less overwhelming, and make considered purchases.
As I was writing this, I realized that I actually take these steps when shopping in general, not just secondhand. But I think these steps are especially helpful in large, crammed thrift stores, and also in places with tons of merchandise (um, hi San Sebastian Zara).