Weekly Roundup of Secondhand Finds

Plus secondhand shopping tips & brands I like...and a rant!

I am always secondhand browsing. It’s a skill, it’s an art, it’s a science, it’s a blessing, it’s a curse, it’s an addiction, it’s late-stage capitalism, we’re all going to die, etc. We’ve all made secondhand purchases that we’re proud of or regretted, that were a steal or a splurge, that were so totally us or so totally not. It’s hard out there, especially when you don’t have the safety net of returns. I’ve got some advice below.

But first, a plug for personal stylists

I can’t help but recommend you consider hiring a personal stylist instead of going it alone. If you invested $500 or $1000 into an expert to help you understand, discover, capture, grow your personal style, build a closet you love, and navigate the spider’s web that is shopping these days, you might make $500 to $1000 fewer regrettable purchases and feel a lot better in your skin. I see immediate transformations in my personal styling clients after just one 3-hour closet auditing session.

But second, a rant

A handful of successful, well-compensated, affluent, top fashion influencers have been promoting an app called Croissant that claims to guarantee value for things you buy new from a bunch of different websites and brands. I was intrigued by the concept and prospect as I’m a big resale enthusiast. So I downloaded it, perused, and briefly gave it access to my Gmail before I quickly realized it feels like yet another disingenuous way to compel you to buy and spend too much on things you don’t need or want or can’t afford.

Croissant makes you feel virtuous for buying something new you’re guaranteed to resell, thereby allegedly saving you money and somehow being sustainable. But when you’re buying a bag from The Row that costs $2000 to resell it just one year later for $1400, making it cost $600 to use one bag for a single year…or a Frankie Shop $300 blazer you can resell for $30 after just a year of wear…that just doesn’t work for me. Aren’t we supposed to be encouraging each other to build our authentic personal style around our true taste with purchases that stand the test of time?

I think it’s a corrosion of the concept of buying something you know has good resale value down the line to (a) reduce that value significantly so a company can make it off you (cough cough my beloved The Real Real, brilliant for buyers yet absurd for sellers) and (b) arbitrarily restrict your usage of that item to 365 days, thus solidifying trendiness and one-season wears as the goal. It’s also limited to only NEW items, creating a false sense of virtuosity that it’s okay to buy this brand new item cuz it’s circular and sustainable once Croissant resells it.

Instead, I propose we buy the thing we actually want, need and can afford secondhand in the first place and keep it as long as we want. You can always resell it yourself later.

It’s a good thing I have a very small readership so far because I bet this is gonna rub some people the wrong way. I’m not trying to be mean! It’s just my values and I think it’s important to have diverse voices on here. Plus, they have a much larger readership than me so who cares what I think!

Anyway, here are some secondhand things I think are a great value today:

Well, first some tips and then the links.

The Real Real

You can’t bid on The Real Real. What you can do is:

1. Compare other items and similar items from the same brand to get a sense of average cost and determine how much you’re willing to pay.

2. Check the fabric content and measurements and read the condition in detail. If it’s stained on the interior, who cares, but if there’s a stain on the exterior, you might want to skip it. If the shoe isn’t going to last much longer, is it really worth it? And so on.

3. They are notoriously messy about their listing accuracy. This may or may not work in your favor. When you’re using their search categories, remember that the more you filter out, the more you’re going to miss that you could be looking for because of their poor tagging and labeling system. You think you might want to filter by condition, but that one especially is all over the place, so perhaps just read it.

4. Save things to your hearts and watch the price go down. Prices go down algorithmically. Be patient, unless it’s a holy grail item you’ve been waiting for.

5. Consider ordering a big haul filled with returnable things you are intersted in, try them all on to determine if it’s actually a good fit, return them all, and then lie in wait for that price to go down.

6. Use the REAL 20% discount for anything that’s not already on sale.

7. After a certain discount, it’s final sale. Note which items are not returnable!

8. Take into account the $15 shipping and $15 return shipping into the price.

Here’s a bunch of links to TRR items I think are great value from brands I like.