SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT!More women are finding high style at consignment shops
When Deirdre, a freelance artist and mother of two in her early thirties, spent more than $200 on a cashmere sweater last winter, she knew exactly where her next shopping stop would be: a consignment store in her upscale Westchester hometown. “There, I’d be able to find a good quality skirt or slacks yet spend under $20,” she says. “Shopping consignment reverses the guilt when I splurge at retail.” Jennifer, a 26-year-old New York fashion editor, has been a regular at vintage and consignment shops since she was a teenager. “Back then it wasn’t cool to shop vintage, but I did it anyway because I wanted to find things that nobody else had,” she explains. “Today, vintage clothing is totally hip with teens and women in their twenties...and an amazing bargain.” Her latest steals? A silk slip dress for $17, a ‘70s-style cream cashmere sweater for $12, and an Obermeyer wool ski sweater from the ’60s for $35. Resale — once the province of flea markets, swap meets, and musty-smelling thrift stores-has undergone a makeover. Much of the credit goes to upscale consignment shops offering “gently worn” designer apparel at bargain prices. Many such shops have opened over the past few years and have found an enthusiastic and growing target market: young women who now realize that second-hand fashion can have first-class cachet. The Cotton Incorporated Lifestyle MonitorTM reflects this phenomenon. The number of women who say that they have shopped in consignment stores has jumped in every age group (from 16-70) between 1995 and 1997. And last year, 53% of women aged 25-34 reported that they had shopped in a consignment store, up from 48% two years ago. A confluence of factors has contributed to the growth of consignment and vintage clothing shops over the past decade. Chief among them has been the consistent parade of retro fashion down couture runways as the world’s top designers mine the past for inspiration. This sends budget-conscious young women to vintage clothing shops in search of similar looks. Once there, many become hooked — although the resale category will never represent a serious challenge to traditional retail. “The mentality of the average customer has changed about purchasing a used garment,” says Jack Marcus, who has run Cheap Jack’s, a 12,000-square-foot vintage clothing emporium in New York’s Greenwich Village for the past 22 years. “My young customers today come in looking for quality and price, and most have no problem with the fact that it’s used, as long as it is clean and in good condition.” Nancy Ungerman, who with her partner Jan Kennedy opened Clotheshorse Anonymous in Dallas 22 years ago, has observed first-hand — and benefited from—the shift in thinking about resale. “Consignment used to be hush-hush — that’s why when we opened the shop we called it Clotheshorse Anonymous,” she says. “But today women see it as a smart way to shop and a sensible way to spend their money. It’s a bit of reverse status.” Clotheshorse Anonymous, with 7,000-square-feet of selling floor, offers couture labels such as Escada, Armani, Gucci and Chanel, as well as items from bridge and better lines and even merchandise from the Gap. How good are the prices? “An Armani jacket that last year sold for $1,100, I just picked up at Clotheshorse for $300,” says Ungerman. “Yes, of course I shop at my own store!” In Chicago, Brenda Theus’s consignment shop practically rubs elbows with the Armani, Versace and Chanel shops that line the city’s Gold Coast retail neighborhood. She opened Bella Moda Consignment House for Women’s Designer Apparel six years ago because after years of working in retail she perceived a demand for upscale resale. “And since then, I think the concept has become more and more acceptable,” says Theus. “I’ve seen young female stars tell interviewers that the outfit they’re wearing is vintage or from a consignment store. I also think the success of the Jacqueline Onassis and Princess Diana auctions made the concept of used clothing more acceptable to women of all ages.” Terin Fischer, the thirty-ish owner of Out of Our Closet, a designer consignment and sample shop in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, sees economics at work in the success of her four-year-old boutique. “The majority of my customers are young women, just out of school and working in the city,” she explains. “At our store, they can pick up a Gucci suit for $500 to $750 rather than $2,000.” “I can tell you that the resale business — consignment, thrift, vintage — is a hot business right now,” says Carole Selig, president of New York’s Encore 1, which has been selling couture fashion on consignment for the past 44 years at Madison Avenue and 84th Street. “It’s quite an exciting time for us.”
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This story is one in a series of articles based on findings from Cotton Incorporated’s Lifestyle Monitor™ tracking research. Each story will focus on a specific topic as it relates to the American women’s wear consumer and her attitudes and behavior regarding clothing, appearance, fashion, fiber selection and many other timely, relevant subjects.
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