Rules of Thrifting : Develop Your Eye

I recently posted two rare and wonderful items for sale on Ebay, and while I like to keep the commercial aspect of things to a minimum around here, the provenance of both of these items speaks to a very important rule of thrifting that bears discussion here. Anyone can look through the obvious stuff, but it takes a seasoned pro to find things were they really don't belong, and "an eye" for this sort of thing can only come with practice and experience.

Pictured above is vintage men's dressing gown made of heavy but butter soft wool, made in England by Welch Margetson and Sons for Dunhill of New York, likely 1940s. I found this garment hidden in a rack of women's overcoats. As I passed by the rack, something about the finish of the cuffs and the piping at the lapel caught my eye, so I stopped to look. That extra minute was all it took. I might not have looked through an entire rack of women's coats, but practice has trained my eye to rest on little details that might yield a surprise result. Conversely, a rack of men's sleepwear is likely to have mostly, if not all, cheap flannel pyjama bottoms from Target and Old Navy. I'd love to keep it, and wear it with silk pyjamas and velvet slippers, but fancy house clothes and I don't mix, since I'm likely to be washing dishes, doing laundry, or some other mundane and potentially dirty task in them. Still, I hope it finds a lovely home (auction info here).

Not too much later I found this vintage flannel rowing blazer. I saw this hanging at the end of a rack of business suits in the women's department of another store. It's buttons had been replaced with some awful fake jewel buttons, and the sleeves had been "altered" by having the cuffs turned up and under about two inches and badly stitched on the inside. I took out the stitches, steamed the cuffs and sewed on some gold buttons I had laying around, which is what this jacket should have in the first place. I'm sad to see this one go, but I'm about two inches short for it and I don't think I'll be spending much time on a boat, or near one, any time soon. (auction info here).

I'm not suggesting that there's no organization in thrift shops, and certainly some are better than others, but it tends to be the more unusual garments, the ones with details that most normal people would assume are effeminate these days, that might wind up in the ladies clothes. The robe may look masculine enough in the photos I took, but its set in a very masculine context. The piping on the rowing blazer is not something common in menswear anymore, except in the most rarefied circles, and many of those folks aren't haunting the thrift shops. By the same token, brightly colored bits of silk may seem to most people like a women's accessory, but I find most of pocket squares in bins full of ladies scarves. For that matter, women's jacket styled like menswear often mix with the men's clothing in these places too.

The point here is to keep an open mind, and do what you can to develop a sharp eye for detail and imaginative shopping techniques. Sometimes the best garments are hidden in plain sight if you only just look for them.

Happy Hallowe'en

I vant to suck your blood......

Vintage 1949 midnight blue 4x1 double breasted tuxedo with silk shawl collar and forward pleated trousers, tailored by Hickey-Freeman for F.R.Tripler of New York, $24.99, thrift shop; pleated Brooks Brothers formal shirt, $4.99, thrift shop; black (gasp) tassel loafers by W.S.Foster and Sons, made in England,  $9.99

BOO! Seriously, though, in these days, when the hell else am I going to get to wear something this awesome. Happy Halowe'en.

10 Years

New York City, 24 July 2003

We had been together five or six years. We decided to elope. The plan was simple: we would go down to New York for an extended weekend, get married in city hall. We needed a witness, so my brother would come down on the train and meet us there. He would be the only other one to know. The we'd come home and tell everyone. But...

A few weeks before the trip, my band was playing a gig of a Friday or Saturday night. I was at the club early for sound check. The soon-to-be-Mrs. G would have dinner with some girlfriends and meet us there. She arrived about ten minutes before we were set to play. One of her friends just grinned at me. "What?" I said. "Nothing" she said. Then, just before we hit the stage, one of my bandmates was congratulating me and giving me a beer. Seems she had some vodka and couldn't contain her excitement. By the end of it, they were toasting us from the stage.

The jig may have been up, but we still went to New York and did it. Young and broke as we were, we stayed at the Carlton Arms, but sprung for the room with the private bath.Our "honeymoon" consisted of a day spent at Coney Island. I knew then she was right for me, because she loved it as much as I did. Who else would? We took the Fung Wah bus home the following Tuesday happily married, and we still are.

Happy Anniversary Mrs. G. I love you.

Dearest StyleSeek(ers)

Mr. Ryan Plett, of such fame as You Have Broken The Internet, etc., has been hard at work on a new web thing called StyleSeek. You sign up, take a silly test where you choose from a set of pictures, and a profile is created whereby you are directed to buy a bunch of expensive things from the people with whom he is affilated. The problem? StyleSeek has lifted an extensive amount of complete blog posts wholesale from not only me, but other bloggers as well. Nobody there thinks they need to ask anybody anything. After all, the internet is a Wild West free for all, right?

My email to them:
Mr. Plett,


I am the owner and sole author of An Affordable Wardrobe (http://www.anaffordablewardrobe.com/) a menswear blog dealing with tips and advice for men of lesser means with a sense of style to find ways of living well on a tight budget. As my masthead states, penury is not an excuse.


It has recently been brought to my attention by a handful of my readers that a number of my articles, photos and titles included, have been included wholesale on your new site StyleSeeker. While I suppose I should feel flattered or something that you and other big shot New York bloggers have deemed me fit to include, it escapes me how none of you will put a link to my blog in your blogroll, but have no problem using my content to help your affiliates sell their goods. The fact that I was never contacted prior to use and had to find out "through the grapevine" as it were I find more than a little irksome. The fact that you are using my content, pulled from a blog that deals specifically with thrift shopping and bargain hunting, to help sell expensive luxury goods flies in the face of my work. The fact that someone else is profiting by all this....well, lets just say that as a working Dad with a night job and a home business who does his best to do right by his kids, I am feeling somewhat violated. If my content is going to be used to sell things, I should be getting paid. My boss pays me to help him sell things, and I see little difference here.


For your information, I frequently turn down requests for ad space for products or companies that I don't wish to support.In the old days, we called that integrity. I do run ads on my site, ocassionally, but I am very choosy about what gets through. It's nice to get paid by the internet, but it's nicer to be able to sleep at night. How do you know I care to support the companies and products linked out at the end of the articles you've chosen to take from me? If Sid Mashburn wants me to write copy for his bow ties, he can pay me. If Barney's needs help selling seersucker, I'm open to a conversation. I'm sorry, but the pictures I took of myself, in my own clothes, are not "freebies" for you or them to use to sell things. If you had asked first, or given me any say at all in the matter of how my own work was to be used, I'd be open to discussion. This, however, is a huge turn-off. An Affordable Wardrobe, as I think you know, is all about how to successfully avoid this kind of thing and still come out on top, and you seem to have subverted my writing something fierce.


Or, maybe I'm just not getting this, being a 35+ year old provincial from Boston, and I need a young, hip, New York big shot to explain this to me. If I'm wrong, I'm glad to hear it as long as you can explain this to me. For now, I'm pretty angry.

I will certainly publish Mr. Plett's response, and I look forward with great relish to it. True, money and recognition are nice, but they are far from the goal:

Update, 19 July 2012:

 It seems that my efforts combined with those of Jesse Thorn of Put This On, another blog from which content was plucked wholesale, have resulted in quick response, of a sort. Mr. Plett has apologized in his way, feigning innocence, and claiming that his intent was only to help poor little me and other small time bloggers. Apparently, the money to be made by him and his affiliates had nothing at all to do with his actions. To wit, his response in the comments, and this:

Mr. Timore,


I am sorry to hear that you were unhappy with StyleSeek using four of your blog posts. We of course respect your desire for us to not post content from your blog and as such, we have removed the posts from the StyleSeek site. We had, in fact, provided attribution to your blog for each of the four posts, just as we do for all postings on StyleSeek.

 Sincerely, Ryan Plett

 I never said you didn't attribute the posts, I said I found it reprehensible that you were using them in an effort to generate revenue. Sounds a bit more like damage control than an apology, Mr. Plett. I have small kids. I know the difference between a sincere apology and being told what someone thinks I want to hear. Boo, Mr. Plett.

I will consider the matter officially closed, so my readers and I can move on to enjoying our discussions here again.

Thanks to all my readers who commented and wrote kind emails to me. I greatly appreciate your continued support in my owrk here at An Affordable Wardrobe.

20 July 2012:

That's more like it. Apology accepted, Mr. Spalding.

Comrades in Arms : Put This On and Street Etiquette Get Cheap

Some thrift store types get all territorial and hate to see anyone else pick up a "good score". Not me. Personally, I'm happy to see someone else experience the little thrill that is finding things you couldn't hope to afford at a price you can. Besides, proof that I'm not the only one keeps me from feeling crazy.

Put This On, Season 2, Episode 2: Thrifting with Street Etiquette from Put This On on Vimeo.

Long distance friend by proxy Jesse Thorn of Put This On went thrift shopping in New York City for this installment of season 2 of their web series. It's a fun watch. Jesse shops like I do, for the same things, so take his advice as you would mine. Travis and Josh of Street Etiquette have a more urban street style in mind, but it's a cool and eclectic one. They remind me that it's not only old farty fuddy duddies like me who can do well to shop this way. One thing we share in common is the ability to see a used garment as raw material and envision it altered, so take their advice as you would mine too. Bonus points for the Hudson Bay coat.

PTO Man: Sean Crowley from Put This On on Vimeo.

This video is an older one, and well worth watching if for no other reason than our man Crowley's last line, which is the mantra by which I live my daily life.

p.s. That Turnbull & Asser shirt Jesse picked up for $7.99 is a find, but you know I'd have gotten it for $1.99. Just sayin'.

Custom Suit Blitz

Being the clothes horse that I am, I've managed to compile an indecent collection over the years. I've gathered everything from the most basic of basics to the downright outlandish. And yet, the one garment which continues to elude me is the perfect charcoal grey suit. I thought I'd have this situation remedied when I ordered one online last Fall, but that endeavour ended badly. Round two sees Imparali Custom Tailors of New York throwing their hat in the ring. They have graciously offered to make a suit for me, and so I visited them in blitzkrieg fashion Tuesday.

7:50 a.m. saw me dashing through South Station, wishing I was getting on a train instead of racing to catch the 8:00 bus, but for $26 round trip, you learn to put up with some minor discomfort.By 12:30, Tin Tin and I were prowling around Brooks Brothers and Paul Stuart, killing time before my appointment later in the afternoon. A very British lunch of fish and chips with a pint of Old Speckled Hen (a real treat if you can find it on draft and nitrogenated) and we were off to the tailor.

608 5th avenue greets one with a stunning Art Deco interior.I'm already feeling better about this than my last attempt at custom.

An unassuming sign beside an unassuming door at the end of an unassuming hallway.

Inside, we're greeted by Matt Harpalani, the affable young fellow in charge. Matt comes to tailoring in the foot steps of his father, also a tailor. His full story can be read here. He knows his stuff, and approaches it in a conversational and friendly manner that puts the customer quickly at ease. No stuffiness here, and that's good. I like nice things, but I have no time for stuffy people.

Matt begins by showing me some completed goods awaiting pick up so I can see up close the level of quality we're dealing with. This double breasted glen check with open patch pockets was a particular knock-out...

...while this purple velvet number piped in gold shows that he'll go to any lengths to meet any request.

Swatch books with fabrics from mills in England and Italy are piled atop a large table. After much deliberation, I settled on a dark grey super 120s Italian worsted. As I waited for Matt to finish up with his previous customer, I notice some very encouraging things around this small room.

Bemeberg linings available in every imaginable color....

...a book of formal wear swatches from Holland and Sherry, which included tartans, velvet, and striped fabrics for morning dress....

...and on the dressing form, a beautifully executed 3/2 roll. I'm getting excited. Now for the measurements...

photo: the Trad

I get a full and thorough once over with the tape. Certain of the numbers, such as the one being taken here, may have been disturbingly large, but hopefully the resulting garment will de-emphasize that.

photo: the Trad

And I never knew how things like slope of the shoulder and arch of the back were accounted for, but now I do. With the help of wonderfully archaic devices like this. Right up my alley.

We discussed every detail, and my own personal style preferences. Fortunately, I managed to avoid the over blown silly detail trap that rubes like me tend to indulge with custom made things. The suit will be a three piece. The jacket will have a natural shoulder, 3/2 front, 3 inch lapels, no darts, but some shaping through the sides. The trousers will have buckle side tabs, brace buttons, no belt loops, and forward pleats. The vest is a standard five button single breasted. Can't wait.

Imparali is a full service operation, offering custom shirts and cashmere topcoats, and specializing in outfitting wedding parties.The suit I ordered in the fabric I chose would have cost around $900 or so. The clothes are made in a factory in China, but the factory has been owned by Matt's family since 1967. That's something right there. It will be ready in about five weeks. Of course we have to wait for the suit to arrive before we make the final call, but so far so good. Finished goods can be picked up at Imparali, or shipped to you. I'm planning a trip back to pick mine up. Alterations are free for life, so if tweaks are needed Matt will do them there. If I manage to get those disturbingly large measurements down a bit, he'll fix that too.

By midnight the same day, I was home in bed. Brutal, but hopefully worth it. Look for the conclusion sometime in late February or early March.