The Thrifty Life

The Thrifty Life

By Jana

I’ve made a commitment this year to only add to my wardrobe if it’s something I have made or have purchased from a thrift store (shoes and underwear excepted). Most of the clothes sold in retail stores in the US have been made in factories overseas, many of them in Export Processing Zones that are run like a cross between sweatshops and antebellum cotton plantations, and I don’t want to contribute to that if it can be avoided. Luckily, most yarn manufactories are not badly run – and many of them contribute to their local economies in healthy ways – so I have no problem purchasing yarn from my local yarn store. (Well, I may have a problem, but it runs more toward an addiction, which is a topic for another day.) When I buy from a thrift store, I’m keeping an object out of the waste stream, and I’m helping out whatever charity the thrift store supports. I confess I also enjoy the thrill of finding something unexpected – it’s always a crap shoot. With just a little sewing skill, I can refashion clothes that don’t fit me into ones that do. Over the years I have found Spode china, clothes from Giorgio Armani, Jill Sander, and Issey Miyake, and an exact replica of the Pyrex bowls my mother used but that had disappeared after her death. And this past Saturday, I scored in a big way: a vintage dress form for only $50! I’ve been contemplating getting a dress form to help with my knitting and sewing, but was daunted by the price, so I was overjoyed to find this one. I’m thinking of naming her Tabitha, after the mother in A Prayer for Owen Meany whose dress form plays an important part in that novel.