The Gift of Charity Shops

Everyone has trigger words. ‘Robert Downey Junior’ causes a friend to automatically utter ‘my future husband’. ‘Gin’ causes another friend to look around muttering ‘where?’. For me it’s ‘charity shop’ that causes a quickening of the pulse followed by the happy realisation that even though I’m skint I can still play in the clothes world.

I can’t say when it first was that I heard the words whispered on the breath of the style-hungry-yet-cash-poor. Neither can I say when I first walked into one of the shops that inundate our capital but only the initiated can make sense of.

How your initial experience goes is crucial. I have a friend who failed to find anything suitable on her first two forays and has since viewed the experience like I view jeans: perfectly respectable but not for me. However, the moment you pick up the right garment, try it on and discover it’s under a tenner – if not under a fiver – the love affair has begun.

There is a system in place in our cosmopolitan society, it’s called: you get what you pay for. But in charity shops, you’re playing with monopoly money and require only a sense of style to walk away with a steal you can wear in real life.

The other wonder is the manageable size of your average CS. You can nip in, give it a thorough once over and emerge triumphant in the space of quarter of an hour. That’s about the same length of time it takes to queue for the changing rooms in Topshop. Shopping without the social warfare, it feels like cheating.

And it’s not just clothes you can scoop up; books, accessories and household items can all be amassed for next to no funds. There are, however, a few  tips I would give to the charity shop novice lest you should jump in at the deep end and find yourself sinking in shapeless blouses and uninspired cords.

1. Know what you’re looking for. Having your antennae up for certain colours, items or fabrics, will speed the process of sorting the wheat from the chaff.

2. The quality and fashion of what’s on offer varies from area to area. Peckham charity shops have left me angry and confused whereas Angel’s ones feel like coming home.

3. Be prepared to come away empty handed – just because it’s cheap, it doesn’t mean you should buy it.

4. Opportunistic CS shopping is the best. Whereas heading down to central London or braving somewhere like Westfield is an event, the charity shopper’s wardrobe is best accrued by a series of timely darts.

Image by Andrew in Raleigh courtesy of Flickr