In today’s economy, a good bargain is better than a good label-and consignment-store shoppers can often get both. “People are more conscious in the ’90s of recycling and not wasting,” says Amy Helgren, co-owner of The Second Child, a Chicago children’s resale shop. As a result, the resale business is growing at a time most retail-clothing companies are hanging on by their threads. According to Trudy Miller, president of the National Association of Resale & Thrift Shops in Chicago Heights, Ill., the number of for-profit resale shops has increased 10 to 15 percent each year for the past five years. The largest number of resale shops specializes in women’s clothes, followed by children’s clothing, men’s wear, bridal dresses and even large-size garments.
Resale shopping is a bargain hunter’s dream. While some of the tony consignment shops carry a few Chanel jackets or Dior dresses from the closets of e rich an famous, most suppliers bring in the solid American labels that many professional women buy for work-names like Liz Claiborne and Ellen Tracy. Upscale consignment shops usually cut 50 to 75 percent off the original price and insist that the merchandise be no more than two seasons old and in top shape; if the garment sells, they split the profits with the supplier. “One lady buys great things for her kids,” says Zebbie Mathis of The Red Balloon in Ridgefield, Conn. “She moved to Chicago, but she still sends us a box every season. Our customers wait for it. When it comes, they tear through it like it was a Christmas package.”
For other customers, resale shopping is more a matter of personal style than an exercise in the art of the deal. “I don’t feel manipulated when I go to resale shops,” says Chicago ’lawyer Dianne Bush, 31. “You don’t end up with the same thing everybody else has on. The things you buy are unique. The economy has nothing to do with it.” But for women like Gloria Mercer of Chicago, shopping well is still the best revenge. “I haven’t bought new clothes in years,” brags Mercer, who visits the Chicago resale shop Entre Nous on an almost daily basis. The change reflects the new national Zeitgeist. Lavish excess is as out of date as splashing designer labels on the outside of a garment. Quality and value are more important than flash and cash. It’s enough to make Second Hand Rose seem like the first ecologist.
