Thrift Store Chic

Thrift store chic refers to a style of dressing where clothes are cheap and/or used. Clothes are often bought from thrift stores such as the Salvation Army, Goodwill, or Value Village. This fashion movement became popular during the late 1980s and 1990s with the growing popularity of such music and style influences including the grunge band Nirvana. Thrift store chic can be considered as an anti-fashion statement because it does not follow fashion trends and does not attempt to look expensive or new.

Thrift store chic is often composed of vintage t-shirts, flannel ‘lumberjack’ shirts, and worn and torn jeans. This laid back, nonchalant, and aloof look became fashionable and trendy without attempting to.

During the 1990s, singers such as Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, and Eddie Vedder promoted the look. Kurt Cobain’s style included uncoordinated and non-brand-name items of clothing that created the look of a carelessly cool grunge rock star. Clothes often had holes or tears in them and were worn in many layers, which hid the body. Cobain’s modest style contrasted from the aggressive and glamorous style of bands such as Guns N’ Roses. Fans of Nirvana found it easy to emulate his style, thus identifying themselves and the grunge movement. His thrift store style also reflected an ironic stance against corporate culture. Ironic, because his band had signed with the corporate music label Geffen Records.

Entering the 2000s, this look because associated with musical scenes including indie rock and emo, gradually spreading to the hipster movement. The hipster movement is popular among people in their 20s and 30s whose style attempts to reject mainstream trends. The hipster movement embraced thrift store chic because of its love for vintage items, especially clothing. Items that became popular in particular included flowery cotton dresses and cardigans. The hipster look almost attempts to look like a homeless person who can afford expensive electronics. Hipster-thrift-store-chic embraces nostalgia and irony by wearing old trucker-caps and vintage bowling t-shirts ironically.

With the stock market crash of 2008, shopping at thrift stores became more widely accepted. Bragging about how much an item of clothing cost was no longer about how expensive it was, but rather how cheap it cost. Showing off a six-hundred-dollar pair of shoes when people were losing their jobs was no longer tactful. In the United States, resale stores experienced an average of 35% increase in sales&. Purchasing used clothing has lost much of its stigma also due to the growing environmental movement towards consumption. Because textiles can be difficult to recycle (especially mixed blends), reusing clothing is considered environmentally friendly because it makes use of material that would have otherwise potentially ended up in a landfill.

Thrift store chic is also popular among people who enjoy creating their own outfits from pieces of used clothing. This DIY (do-it-yourself) approach creates original articles of clothing that can be very personalized. For example, in the 1986 movie “Pretty in Pink,” Molly Ringwald’s character, Andie Walsh, is fond of taking clothing from thrift stores and creating a unique and eclectic wardrobe. One very memorable article is the prom dress she creates, made from merging two separate dresses.

Famous quotes containing the words thrift, store and/or chic:

    Loosened from the minor’s tether;
    Free to mortgage or to sell,
    Wild as wind, and light as feather
    Bid the slaves of thrift farewell.
    Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

    I see now that we store him up
    year after year, old suicides
    and I know at the news of your death,
    a terrible taste for it, like salt.
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    Any gentleman with the slightest chic will give a girl a fifty dollar bill for the powder room.
    George Axelrod (1922)