Thursday, January 24, 2008

Vintage Shopping

Sometimes I find myself in a maze of smelly clothes, sneezing, and rummaging through endless racks of pre-owned (translation: very very old) clothes. I'm not necessarily a patron like my friend whose wardrobe is almost entirely from the ukay-ukay. She can find Levi's jeans, Mango tops, Gucci shorts, etc in those stalls in Quiapo. A pair of old Levis' costs less than P100, a shirt around P50, sometimes there are bags for P75 - definitely a whole lot cheaper than their brand new counterparts.

My feelings for ukay-ukay are still unclear. Am I for it or not? Should I stop shopping clean and new? Is buying used clothes practical?

As far as I know I have three ukay-ukay purchases. One is a blue baby doll blouse and 2 Bossini white shirts. The t-shirts look new and cost P75 each. The shop keeper said that their items aren't pre-owned, but were displays from Hong Kong malls which were not bought. Some items still have their tags on. Hmmm... sounds believable. I bought my baby doll blouse from the Olivarez Complex in Tagaytay for P120. There are at least 5 HUGE shops of pre-owned clothes in the complex. This item, I'm sure has been used... but still looks cute. It took me almost 2 hours to find this one good item.

A new shirt would cost between P300 - P500, a nice blouse P500-P1,000. It seems obvious that one should switch to buying used clothes... But, what if the previous owner is dead? Won't she haunt me? Or if the previous owner was struck by a terrible disease? Won't I catch it too? Or am I going crazy...?

Oh well, if I find a good item from an ukay-ukay shop and it costs lest than P150, I'm buying it. Except shoes.

Besides, they're not old clothes... they're vintage!

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