There is no such thing as second-hand…

If your family was anything like mine you were part of a relatives’ hand-me-down chain and could expect a bag of assorted clothes, shoes and toys passed down from older cousins as regularly as winter turned to spring. If, like me, you totally lost out in the cool cousin category you were unlikely to find anything that your mother would seriously expect you to wear anywhere other than your own closed and barricaded bedroom.

As a kid I found the whole idea of rummaging around in someone’s left-overs to find something that I might possibly wear to bed on a cold night completely lame and embarrassing. As I got older the idea of scoring a ‘lucky’ grew on me and of course today it is not older, geeky cousins that pass along their secondhand clothes its my trendy working gal pals. We all do it. Maybe you are bored to tears with that mauve sweater that you snatched up at a sale last year while your friend might have put on or lost a couple pounds. Hey, time for a clear out.

Nothing helps this process better than a bottle of wine by the way.  Call the girls, get in a couple of bottles of plonk and a good movie and have a pre-movie swap-meet. Remember as you sort through all those second-hand goodies that yesterday’s treasure is tomorrow’s trendy and when you are talking fashion there is no such thing as second-hand. Think gently used, pre-loved, retro or vintage and you’ll soon get in the spirit.