Everything Old

Author: Carol Driscoll

On Saturday mornings, in the mid-Fifties, my friend Diane and I shopped at Goodwill. We were regulars there. We used to dress our dolls in the softly worn, cast off baby clothes we bought there for quarters and dimes. We also trolled the aisles for treasures for ourselves.

Like archeologists, we unearthed shards of fashion history: Poodle and Scottie Pins with Rhinestone eyes, tasseled belts, huge plastic pocketbooks and fake fur muffs. Any accessory that was furred, fringed or feathered enchanted us. We were particularly fond of lace-trimmed handkerchiefs and we called anything with black velvet trim “splendid”. Splendid was our word for anything pleasing to us and we used it often.

We were proud of our “neat, old stuff” and ignored, with pre-teen grandeur, the scorn of our siblings and the adults who winked broadly at each other and asked what we got over at the Goodwill that day. We may have been short on taste, but we were long on style, if style can be defined as self-assurance mixed with an emerging enjoyment of who we were becoming. Sadly, this high-spirited independence was not to last much longer.

High school, that great leveler of individuality, sterilized and flattened our style and stopped our short-lived foray into second-hand glamour. We did that fifties thing; we conformed. We were not so sure of ourselves anymore, especially around boys who had become BOYS.

We shopped in bland, orderly department stores like the rest of our friends. Like them, we bought knife-pleated wool skirts in navy or charcoal gray, tailored blazers with meaningless emblems on the pocket, prim blouses with peter pan collars, sweater sets, circle pins, penny loafers and saddle oxfords. (They had to be the ugly kind with thick, rubber soles).

So arbitrary was this unwritten dress code that most of us knew not to wear certain colors on certain days because it signified “scandalous” things about us. For example if a boy wore yellow and green on Thursday, it meant he was effeminate. If a girl wore red on Friday she was wanton and would get a “bad reputation”. The number one rule of the unwritten dress code was “un-new is unhip” so Diane and I didn’t go to Goodwill anymore.

Quite awhile after high-school we learned that we were not the only ones who liked whiling away weekend afternoons at flea markets or rummage sales. It took just another decade for us to see that we slightly ahead of the times in our fascination for the “funky”. The second-hand subculture that we were so attracted to not only survived but evolved into today’s many thrift, and on a grander scale, Vintage Clothes shops.

People do not even have to stray far from home to indulge their passion for the “previously owned”, because in spring, the garage, yard and patio sales are as plentiful as tree pollen. Rather than enduring scorn or condescension, people who donate and buy used items these days are often respected for their thrift, concern for the environment and eye for the value and beauty of things of the past.

I fall into the last, less altruistic, category. I like to poke around in places where you keep bumping right into the articles and objects of yesterday. Frequenting places that are aptly named “Aunt Agatha’s Attic” or “Cousin Kate’s Closet” evokes romantic images of a female ancestor’s treasured items in an old steamer trunk. In my family, people used things up and threw them out. When I’m in these places, I can belong to a different, more conserving family. I’m able to inhale the perfume of dusty brocades with not a whiff of synthetics anywhere. I can admire the elegance of elbow-length kid gloves, bone hair combs and grosgrain ribbons tangled in a basket and revel at the sight of a scarlet satin and black sequined evening bag spilling out of an antique armoire.

Such a feast of the senses would be quite enough for a junque seeker like me. However, on one or two occasions I’ve seen a couple of giggling girls delight in themselves and their weird yet irresistible purchases. Then I know that, like the song says, “Everything Old is New Again”.