Cheap Bouclé Wanted
Cover Photo by Laura Candeletta-Burklin
There are few places that lure these kind of improbable groupings of people. Perhaps parallels are sometimes public schools and hospitals; the well-heeled and the strapped reading from identical textbooks, receiving the same medical procedures. However, no other place than Goodwill accommodates human beings from vastly different socio-economic backgrounds digging through castoffs side-by-side.
Recently, I sat down with an avid Goodwill’er to discuss her experience. My grandmother, Hilda Price, lives in Lake Placid, FL off of social security and her husband’s savvy investments and savings. Seated on the cat clawed, leather sofas next to quite possibly the cutest 79-year-old woman, I listen to Mema as she pats her black Chihuahua, Jack with one hand.
“I never try anything on in the store, makes me itch! I take it home first, wash everything. If it doesn’t work, I’ll just donate it back. Hey, it’s only a few bucks.”
A deep love for denim, I must have inherited the bargain gene from Mema. One of my favorite trends from the past decade is thrifting. As I gaze up at the modern, cube shaped structure of DeLand’s Goodwill, only months old, I get the familiar feeling. Passing under those monstrous, cobalt letters bordered by gold, I wonder if I will finally get my hands on a vintage CHANEL bouclé. This time, like many others, I am greeted by Mr. Goodwill himself, a young sales associate with dark, rectangular rimmed glasses and a thin mustache fanning out below. This name-tag-less man has been the face of the secondhand shop since I moved to DeLand, Florida as a freshman at Stetson, always a kind voice and closed mouth smile.
During moments like these, my curiosity reels at what he must see daily, and what his convictions are; his theories. Does he find it ironic that white Stetson students make weekly purchases with their debit cards at a place established to provide clothing to, for lack of a better term, the impecunious? Or that prices have gone up to nearly department store rates on certain items? I wonder if he notices at all. Is it just my own arrogance or guilty conscious as I swipe through hangers searching for any and all name brand pieces with my summer trip to Europe in mind? I am ashamed of the way I make sure to only lightly touch the fabrics and not rub my face with the same hand, usually sneezing the entire time.
Tiptoeing towards answers, I was politely rejected by Joann Wittbold, Goodwill of West DeLand’s general manager. A middle aged woman, dressed in black slacks and a crisp polka dot button down, led me to her modest office in the back of the store. While watching her blonde bob swing, I could not help but wonder if her own outfit had come from the piles of preowned wardrobes. Snapping me out of my day dream, she informed me that it is against protocol for any Goodwill employee to give quotes to press on behalf of the organization, so she redirected me to the corporate offices telephone number in Orlando by using her nude, polished nail as a pointer. Disappointed by the lack of Mr. Goodwill’s voice, Wittbold was, however, able to tell me a little about their region’s charities. Withholding any school or faculty names, she said, “Our stores connect with a high school near Orlando to donate brand new formal wear to [low income] students for prom.” She validates the trend of thrift shopping by adding that years ago this organization provided people who were in need. However, customers “who once had to, now want to.”
Goodwill as a whole has little to fuzzy information available to internet surfers. It is as if the secondhand dust has settled over any hard factual links between donator and consumer relations, not to mention profits made by corporate.
With this observation, another is still undeniable; recycled clothing is a win for conservation efforts. Besides the affordability of secondhand clothing for people who fall under the poverty line, they also serve to diminish the fashion industry’s carbon footprint. Rather than purchasing new, cheap goods, often made from synthetic materials that take 200 plus years to decompose in landfills, consumers can participate in the trading of used, cheap goods; possibly made from natural fibers, such as wool and cotton, which take far less time to break down, shall they ever end up on a mountain of trash.
Through my own, perhaps vain, opinion, let us spur one another on — for richer or poorer — towards style and a happy planet.
Go fashionably, go cheap, go green.
