Hi everybody, it's Letitia. So I've been thrifting since high school and high
school was a long time ago. People keep asking me all the time like
where do you go to thrift where do you find the best stuff? So here I have my
top ten thrifting secrets and hacks to ensure that you have the most successful
thrifting trip out there. If you want to see how I style all my thrifty pieces I
think majority of my closet is thrifted at this point, I style all of it on my
Instagram @letitiakiu. When you go thrifting the first thing that you want
to do is have a goal in mind. Whether it's a particular style of top or one
full outfit, or a certain season, styles really tend to be cyclical and
especially nowadays we draw a lot of inspiration from like the 90s. Or if
you're looking for home decor or books, really have an idea. Certain thrift
stores will be better for home decor certain thrift stores will be better for
clothing. So having a goal is very important. In that sense you kind of give
yourself a reasonable amount of time and you don't get overwhelmed when you go to
the thrift store. I don't always have a goal but and then when I don't I'll go
and I'll be like I don't even know where to start. There's lots of different ways
about it you can have a Pinterest mood board, most of the time I check out my
Instagram and where I have my saved pieces my bookmark items. The next thing
that you want to do is actually leave the city, and I pretty much never shop in
Toronto when I lived up in the burbs I did like thrifting there, I found that
it tend to be not picked over as much. Once you go closer and closer to the
central Toronto or like downtown Toronto, on the west end there are quite a lot of
thrift stores and some of them are quite good but then when you go to like
downtown core like Queen West, they have a lot of great thrift stores but they're
all very curated. The price points are like almost the same as shopping retail.
And Talize, as you know I've been working with them for a long time, I
pretty much exclusively thrift there because every location that they have is
huge. You could be lost in there for hours. And at the beginning of May they
opened the new location in Barrie and then my thrifting buddies drove up to Barrie.
Just an extra little tidbit like a little freebie hack there,
it's always good to go thrifting with friends. There are some stinking good
deals and I would make a trip out to Barrie for that. Not only that, but when
you have a giant store to yourself where as the city tends to have smaller
vintage shops you get you just get so many options in so many styles to
yourself. You know I'm not just thrifty with clothing, I'm thrifty like every
aspect of my life and every thrift store does this, but when you bring a donation
in they'll usually have a coupon for you so that you can shop and take a discount
for your next purchase. Before you do anything, drop off your donation, get your
coupon and then you can get to thrifting. Talize has a student discount as well
as 10% off students. Or with me because I love collecting points so I collect
points at Talize as well. While you're at the desk you can ask about inventory
refresh days, so like every retail clothing even in the mall, I know when I
was working at H&M it was like Wednesdays and Fridays at my location,
they would have inventory refresh and that's when new stock would come in and
you want to be there on that day because that's when they put out all the best
fresh new pieces nobody's touched it yet, and you have first dibs. And this is
usually when like designer items or like new items that are very competitive
disappear, so you want to be ready for those or you could be like Naomi and ask
the manager when you see something in the back. First dibs! It's not even out on
the floor yet.
Who do you think you are? Who do you think you are? When you go shopping you
tend to just go for the exact department that you're looking for and the exact
sizing but when you're at the thrift store, all the rules go out the window.
Especially with vintage sizing, even though the number says a certain way it
could actually be like two to four sizes smaller than what it is now. And like
sizing over the time has changed and fit over the time has changed, so you want to
check unusual sections like men's boys boys pants tend to fit me really well
because I'm shorter so men's pants would be too long. They tend to have higher
waist as well to accommodate for certain biological presences. The lingerie
section is also a great place to check for like lace camis or nighties that actually
do really well as slip dresses now, or even bustier tops that you can wear. Anna
and Olivia love to check out the lingerie section and they style lingerie
pieces during the day so well. I particularly love going through the
men's section. I love oversized jackets. I love
oversized sweaters and oversized - I guess I like oversized things a lot, and men's
jean jackets also are the best because the women's one tend to have different
styles in the 2000s there was like weird phases where jackets were very small and
cropped and very tight and they had funny bedazzles. So men's tends to keep
it very simple and exactly to the style that we want it now. Look at this it's a
the beautiful North Face puffer jacket for 50 bucks and then
this incredible Fjall Raven jacket, 20 bucks!
Men's y'all. So don't just stick to your one size and your one department in the
thrift store. There's also a technique to sifting through things at the thrift
store and this is something that I learned in my years at retail, is just to
be able to flip through things quickly. This is my technique so you want to like
prop up against the rack and use both hands to flip through the t-shirts and
t-shirts are a great way to sift because you're able to catch with your
eye pretty quickly whether it's one of those like typical bro t-shirts. Learning
to skim quickly is a good skill to build up at the thrift store it does take time.
Things that I'll do is, I'll walk by and I'll look at certain fabrics. If a
nice-looking fabric catches my eye I tend to gravitate towards certain colors,
particular patterns things that I might guess are silk or wool or high-quality
fabric. With the world being mostly fast fashion now a lot of the thrift store is
also going to be a lot of lower quality pieces people have donated things
because it's just items that have fallen apart and you want to train yourself to
kind of know what's good quality. I'll usually look at the side of the top and
there is usually a make label inside that'll tell you what kind of material
it is. If you see there are certain fabrics that tend to pill a lot faster
or if you do the scrunch test where you scrunch the fabric and you let go and
it's already very wrinkly then it's not really worth wearing because you're
gonna be moving. If you sit down, the second that you get up it doesn't look
good anymore and then there's no point in getting it. And then with older pieces
things tend to be made with higher quality. Anything with a lining is a
dead giveaway that they actually put a little bit more time into making that
item or like itchy wool pants. If a pair of wool pants have lining that's like
that's great. And then checking other things like stitching and overall
construction. The one thing that you do need to avoid at the thrift store is
anything with a brand new tag. So if people have donated things that still
have the tag on it which means that it's never
worn, chances are the thrift store's probably gonna mark it up even higher.
Just because it's considered a higher quality item but you never know, it could
be like a brand new piece from a fast-fashion brand and it has a tags
attached to it so they're gonna mark it up higher, and then right next to it
could be a high quality vintage piece that's a little bit worn no tags but
it's cheaper. Unless you really love the item and it's like one-of-a-kind I would
avoid purchasing pieces that have brand new tags on it. When you have a chance to
try everything on and you found the pieces that you love and you're ready to
make your purchase, be sure to check one last time.
Especially because things are secondhand, you want to check for things like inside
the armpits there might be sweat stains. Sometimes elbows of a shirt, the butt, the
armpit stitches, and the knees where things can wear out a bit more. Blouses
especially around here people tend to bust out of the shoulders if they're too
tight. So you just want to make sure that everything looks okay before you make
that purchase. So I hope you guys enjoyed this video.
Thrifting to me is like, it's way better than shopping. There's a sense of
adventure and a sense of love to it, where I just feel like I care so much
more about the pieces that I have found and have given a new life and knowing
that there was a story behind it even if it was like sitting at the bottom of
somebody's closet and they just decided to give it away. Be sure to subscribe to
this channel if you want to see more thrifting videos. I thrift about like
once a month so there's always gonna be more and you can give the GIRL WHA?!
podcast a listen. We talk about all things female like dating, relationships
and more. Lots more. You can check it out everywhere on iTunes Google Play or
Spotify. And you can submit your questions to us to be featured for the
podcast. I will see you guys next time. Bye!