Better With Age

This week’s letter is JAM PACKED with exclusive content all about vintage and second-hand clothing! HALOSCOPE Archive Editor Kaitlin Owens reimagines runway looks with second-hand pieces already in her closet, Genevieve Wagner and Ella Mascia of sustainable style collective Outfit the Future give us the low down on their favorite places to thrift around the world, regular HALOSCOPE contributor Laura Rocha reviews The Met’s Sleeping Beauties exhibit, and I interview guests at a party themed around wearing your proudest bargain bin find.

Right now, I really hope that you’re getting that feeling I get when I walk into a thrift store and can just SENSE I’m about to find something phenomenal.

Haloscope’s own Archive Editor, Kaitlin Owens, vintage fashion writer, movie buff, lover of good eats, and a women’s size 7.5 (if any shoe brands are reading). She is the Editor-in-Chief of Dilettante Magazine. You can find her on socials @magdilettante.

For Vintage Week here at STAR✦MAIL, Kaitlin has remade high fashion looks using vintage, secondhand, and up-cycled clothing:

Runway Reimagined

By Kaitlin Owens

I’m a firm believer in reusing what you’ve already got. I think that, at this point in human history, we’ve just about mass-manufactured enough clothes (I mean, just ask the people in the Atacama Desert how they feel about our clothing production habits). 

I do try to stray away from buying new – but I also refuse to buy-in to the elitism and “quiet luxury” of the High Fashion conversation. I don’t think you need to buy the latest and greatest luxury items to participate in Fashion. Part of the great fun of getting dressed is taking runway images as inspiration to reimagine the clothes you already have. 

That’s what we’re going to do today! I ripped three looks straight off the runways and reimagined them using clothes I already have. Enjoy:

I got this Batsheva dress on Poshmark for a steal – it’s current-season Batsheva too! My guess is that the original owner ordered the wrong size and waited too long to return it. Whatever the reason, this sheer lace number with the satin modesty panels perfectly emulates Look 31 from the Yohji Yamamoto Spring 2024 RTW show.

You know I love a good DIY – and when the Dilara Spring 2023 RTW show made its big splash two years ago, my little goth heart was set ablaze. I needed to recreate the deconstructed t-shirt nightgown from Look 4. To make it, I took an oversized T-shirt that I bought when I saw Lucy Dacus perform on Brown’s Island (great concert BTW), chopped it up and stitched on the bust of a 1970’s satin nightgown that I had previously spilled a mouthful of cacio e pepe pasta down the front of. 

Yes, I did wear this shirt when I took a vacation to Nashville in 2022 and Yes, the sassy male cashier at the Johnny Cash bar DID ask me why I was wearing my bra outside. I don’t care though. I think it’s a sick look.

Everyone’s gonna hate on the knock off, I can feel it already. But $20 at Goodwill for a sexy JPG inspired Cyberdots dress? I’m not gonna say no…. Pair it with a vintage leather coat and you’re ready for the runway, baby.

Let us see your Reimagined Runway looks! Tag us on Instagram and use the hashtag #STARMAILRunway.

Second-Hand News

By Genevieve Wagner and Ella Mascia

Genevieve Wagner and Ella Mascia are childhood best friends from Cleveland, Ohio. In college, they started the second-hand clothing collective, Outfit the Future (OTF). The collective helped them stay connected while apart during school and celebrate their love of second-hand clothes. OTF was established to create a sense of community around the love of wearing clothes previously owned by others. This included sharing the outfits and stories of their friends and family who also loved wearing second-hand clothes, plus promoting their favorite second-hand stores. Now based in Brooklyn, New York and Oxford, England, Genevieve and Ella’s love of second-hand clothing still burns bright.

Below, the pair highlight some of their favorite second-hand shops around….

Genevieve’s Picks

Avalon Exchange (Coventry), Cleveland Heights, Ohio

This shop was a few minutes away from my high school, so I frequently stopped by during after-school hangouts with my friends. Avalon is in Cleveland Heights’s Coventry Village, a community on the city’s east side that has long been a countercultural hub, providing a space for local and visiting musicians, poets, and comic book artists, among other creatives. Appropriately, the shop is always filled with an exciting mix of eclectic items and classic basics, including concert tees, sneakers, and cool vintage items. A buy-sell-trade establishment, Avalon was an essential part of my teenage development, allowing me to replace my juvenile clothing with items that felt more “me.” Whenever I’m in Coventry, I always stop by, hoping to have the same luck. 

Volunteers of America (Indianola Avenue), Columbus, Ohio

I started shopping here during my freshman year of college. The shop was a short bus ride away from my dorm, north of campus. It mirrored the thrift shops I frequented in my hometown as a kid. It’s a run-of-the-mill thrift store, with nice offerings and great prices. I love the early aughts pop music that they funnel throughout the place. So many Friday afternoons and Saturdays during the school year were spent here during my first years of college. I’m so grateful for the time spent with my friends here, roaming the aisles. I purchased my very first suit here, an oversized brown and black polyester number. I’ve since lost the pants (I hope they return to me someday) but I still have the blazer, which is an essential part of my wardrobe.

Exile Vintage, Toronto, Canada

Exile has been selling vintage clothing since 1975 and oh my goodness what an exceptionally great job they do. I’ve visited this shop twice, both during spring break trips in my youth. The first time was in 2017, when my friends and I took the Greyhound from Cleveland to Toronto during our senior year of high school. I had one backpack with me and somehow I was able to fit an incredibly bulky purchase from Exile inside: brown Big Smith workwear overalls, which I cherish to this day. The second time was in 2019 when my college roommates and I drove to Toronto from Columbus. I was so excited to showcase the shop to my friends. On this visit picked up a pair of vintage high-waisted, pleated khaki slacks. Not as bulky to pack as the overalls. 

This Way Out, Cleveland, Ohio

This Way Out is in the basement of the Beachland Ballroom, a venue/tavern in Cleveland’s Waterloo Arts District. The building is an old Croatian social hall (soooo Cleveland) and once you step in the main lobby, you take a left and head down some stairs to find a haven of vintage items. There are so many Cleveland gems here — vintage t-shirts from local high schools, restaurants, and radio stations, plus a great backlog of band t-shirts from past shows at the venue. There’s also a great collection of records and vintage housewares for sale. I own an incredibly treasured t-shirt from This Way Out that I purchased in 2016 or so. It’s from Corky & Lenny’s, a long-beloved and recently closed Jewish deli on the east side. There’s a mysterious stain on the shirt (maybe fried egg?) that has been there since I purchased it. The stain has never come out in the wash, and I’m eternally grateful.

Ella’s Picks

Mother Jones Market, Cork City, Ireland 

I lived in Cork, Ireland for some time during college, right when Outfit the Future was just a small baby of an idea. I toured all the well-known and not-so-well known second-hand stores of various shapes and sizes while there: charity shops, record stores, and spiffy vintage boutiques. But above all, my favorite spot was Mother Jones Flea Market, a stuffed-to-the brim, maze of a market in the city’s Victorian Quarter. Mother Jones is divided by stalls, each stall operated by a unique seller with their own style and flare. Clothes spanning the decades abound, but so do rusted, antique bicycles which lay next to wooden tables filled with old fine china, film cameras, and glass candlestick holders. Take a stroll among the manifold personalities of Mother Jones market stalls, as you explore the Russian-doll nature of this place, its details and intricacies unfold stall by stall and step by step. 

Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, Illinois 

The Chicago Cultural Center’s store, located on the center’s ground floor, is one of my newest favorite second-hand hot spots. After (or before) visiting the more widely known Cloud Gate or the Chicago Institute of Art, I recommend this lesser visited gem in the Loop. I went in, originally, to view the beautiful, awe-inspiring stained glass ceilings on the second floor (a must-see too), but found the store and numerous art exhibits as a “happy accident”. The center’s store features an abundance of art from local Chicago artists alongside a nice selection of vintage goods and upcycled clothing pieces. The store then leads to public art exhibition spaces–the link between art, clothing, and culture becomes ever more apparent visiting this place, making this store a Chicago must-see in my book. 

W. Armstrong & Son Vintage Clothing Emporium, Edinburgh, United Kingdom (Cockburn Street) 

I mention W. Armstrong and Son Vintage Clothing Emporium because I had a veritable Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants experience while shopping there. While my friends and I did not find a pair of pants that fit us all, we all found something we wanted to buy, which is, in my opinion, a small miracle when going to a second-hand shop with more than two people. Having lived in the UK for only a short time before visiting Edinburgh, I had been looking for an affordable classic tweed jacket to embody this period of my life. I uncovered the perfect one here. I also found my favorite suit jacket, a black-gray wool over-sized piece with the label reading “West Germany”, a key indicator of its vintage authenticity. Each piece of clothing was built well, and has lasted me, with moderate prices for each (around ￡20). I recommend this secondhand locale for its variety and its representation of Scottish/UK fashion (think kilts and tartan) with quality clothes made from classic materials like wool and denim. 

Eclectic Eccentric - Larchmere, Cleveland, Ohio 

I saved the best for last as this is my all-time favorite spot. Simply put, Eclectic Eccentric is a magical place. It features a varied, thoughtful collection of clothing, art, furniture, and other items which are so carefully curated that the store emanates love and care. You can tell that the store’s owner and its buyers only sell things that they love. The prices are affordable to boot (and sometimes they have amazing boots too). Moreover, the secondhand store is located on one of my favorite streets in Cleveland, Larchmere. There’s Loganberry Books right next door and Big Al’s diner farther down the street. You can make a day exploring Larchmere, just don’t get lost in the mystical racks of vintage clothes at Ecclectic Eccentric before you do.

Sleeping Beauties: I know you, the gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam …

By Laura Rocha Rueda

Have you ever wondered what a dead person’s hat smells like? Apparently, the lovely friends at the Met Costume Institute couldn’t work another day without sharing this essential information with the world. 

While the Met Gala received criticism, however rightful, for taking the eyes of the world off Gaza while celebrities engaged in feeding the content loop with displays of opulence lined with political silence, with few exceptions, everybody seems to have forgotten what the Costume Institute is or what it does. It is thanks to the Costume Institute and its yearly exhibitions that I, for one, have received an accessible and fun fashion education. I will never forget walking through the galleries of Camp or visiting the recreation of the 1973 fashion show known as the Battle of Versailles in an incredibly vivid display. But this year, as I worked hard to quiet the noise and experience the show without preconceived opinions, it fell flat. Even with the gorgeous works of art that are undoubtedly on display, it fell flat. 

My main problem with the show were its three extremely wide threads that never seemed to braid together, at least not gracefully: fairytales, nature, and science. On the one hand, the fairytale theme clumsily bleeds into different nature-themed rooms, in which the garments and accessories are categorized: starting with Sleeping Beauty, the rooms that follow are garden-themed, with specific elements being explored, such as beetles or poppy flowers. The jump from Sleeping Beauty to evil siren mermaids feels like a stretch, since the main focus of each room seems to be how fashion has historically represented different parts of the natural world, from flora to fauna. The nature theme is explicit, but the fairytale framing is superficial, at best, and disjointed from the concept of Sleeping Beauty. It does not go deeper than claiming that poppies, or snakes, or seashells (or whatever the focus of the room may be) have been representative symbols in fairytales, and designers have reinterpreted or incorporated these symbols in their creations. While this may seem like an interesting concept to put forth in an exhibition, the exploration fails to land, in my opinion, because the themes chosen are too broad. Personally, I would have been more satisfied if the symbolism had stayed closer to the various versions of Sleeping Beauty–or one fairytale explored more deeply. 

On the other hand, the sciency thread explains how the Costume Institute reawakens scent, touch, and garment construction. Taxidermy bird hats (of a cursed appearance but very cool) are exhibited next to X-rays of their literal bones. A 1887 French ball gown is rendered in a digital alivened video dancing to The Garland Waltz from the Sleeping Beauty ballet (Disney’s “Once Upon a Dream” started immediately playing in a loop in my brain). The texture from a Raf Simons Dior 2014 dress, designed in an intricate pattern of black leather flowers, is reproduced on a wall, so visitors can touch it. A wall that, upon a gentle rub, releases the smell particles from a decades old dress. It is certainly a different way to explore fashion, and the varying analysis methods in each room seemed to follow a method clearly explained in the curatorial text that added a layer of interesting information. But for the life of me I couldn’t put together how the scientific analysis related to the fairytales. 

However, for a show that claims to reawaken fashion, all I want is to see how the garments move on a body, and beyond that Sleeping Beauty soundtracked video at the beginning of the exhibition, there isn’t much of the sort. Therefore, every other effort to “reawaken” comes across as a gimmick. Delicate ancient gowns with visible damage are exhibited laying down, like sleeping princesses, and I understand why these eighteenth and nineteenth century items can’t be worn. And some of the details echoing throughout the galleries are lovely, such as the sound of Alexander McQueen’s shell dress. But Costume Institute! Give me some runway videos at the very least! Pose the mannequins like they’re awake and alive, like you’ve done before! Or better yet: Be bold, hire models to wear an outfit or two! 

Forgive me if, after all this, I still believe that you should go see it. While the exhibition is more like what a permanent collection exhibition from the Costume Institute should look like instead of a special themed show, I still believe it is an incredible way to experience and view high art and high fashion blending together. I love overhearing people declaring which dresses they would wear, or excitedly pointing out to their companion something on display is “very you.” 

A tip from a self proclaimed New Yorker: the Met is open until 9PM (!) on Friday and Saturday nights. Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion is on view now until September 2. 

Thanks, I Got This On Sale

Last Friday, I attended a “Thanks, I Got This On Sale” party hosted by journalist Sonia Weiser at Lofi Bar in Brooklyn and interviewed guests about the vintage and secondhand steals they chose to show off for the occasion:

The Sustainable Baddie blog is a must read for any eco-minded fashion aficionado. Consider SB writers Zibby T-W and Natasha Lopez's ultimate guide to thrifting:

Harling Ross's shopping strategy Substack, Gum Shoe, is a treasure trove of vintage finds. Love her round up of summery black dresses:

And, lastly, check out this 2010 interview where Helen Mirren claims to only pack underwear when she travels, filling her suitcase at a charity shop when she arrives to her destination and donating all the clothing back on her way to her departing flight. Incredible or insane?