A Good Deal

I went to the Garment District on Saturday. Not just to look for a Halloween costume but also because Steve “thought I would enjoy it.” The Garment District is not a district but a store equivalent of Ragstock. It has used vintage clothing and also new trendy stuff with many a hipster browsing the aisles.

This weekend was their Halloween blow out. New Halloween costumes lined the store as well as old clothing the staff had made up to look like costumes. “Look” I would say “you could be a pimp astronaut?” Steve would just shake his head. After walking around the store for a half hour and not finding what I wanted we decided to go downstairs. The downstairs area is filled with shoes and wigs and the most overwhelming site I had ever seen.

To be a used vintage clothing store one assumes that people bring their used vintage clothing there in large trash bag and exchange them or just leave them for the people who work there to through. I imaged the people who worked there much like Goodwill workers sort through the clothing and separate stuff that could be sold and stuff that should be thrown away. This is not the case. The old things that people bring are just dumped on the large warehouse floor for customers to sort though and buy at their leisure. The scene in front of me was the equivalent of an elephant grave yard with the exception of instead of bones used sweaters, blankets, pants, and dresses littered the floor. People tromped around in the mass of clothing in their galoshes as if it was one large ball crawl. I looked up, I was standing by a sign that said “$1.15 per pound of clothing.” People sat in the mess wrapping themselves in blankets that they had just freed from the mass of fabric.

After staring at the sea of clothing I turned to Steve and told him I didn’t think I could handle standing or sitting in a foot of clothing trying to find something I would ever want. In response he then drove me home and made me some hot chocolate.