With Halloween fast approaching, I’ve been receiving advice, solicited and otherwise, regarding the best places for costume-shopping/thrifting in New York City. Lately I’ve been favoring eBay for hard-to-find stuff and, on the other hand, for actual vintage clothing that’s reasonably priced, very well-described and doesn’t appear to have been photographed with a cellphone in someone’s garage, RustyZipper.com. But if I must shop a brick-and-mortar store, here are my favorites so far.
For costume basics, I like the three-story Goodwill on 181st and Audobon. Per its location far uptown in a scrappy corner of Manhattan, this isn’t a place to unearth buried vintage treasure, although they do have a well-organized small collection of leather and jean jackets on the second floor and a handful of things that could be considered retro-fashionable. I find it to be more of a workhorse for costume basics: for plain, solid-colored shirts, blouses, skirts or pants, this is the place to go for articles under $5, and I always feel better knowing my money will help fund the less fortunate as apposed to helping fund the re-wallpapering of a boutique owner’s Hamtons summer home.
A side note: a young lady wearing a nice turquoise vintage skirt told me recently that the best Goodwill/Salvation Army in Manhattan is the Salvation Army at E. 23rd Street and Third Avenue. Although as I’ve never been, I cannot vouch for this claim.
For vintage clothing in Manhattan, there are pockets of shops around 14th Street. I like Rags-A-Gogo (“Second Hand On The Move”) on that stretch, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, although purists would frown upon its Manhattan pricing. There’s a tight selection highlighted by leather and light-weather jackets, as well as cowboy and Hawaiian shirts, and the proprietor is a butch, tattooed lesbian or perhaps bisexual who, every time I’ve been in the shop (and I’ve been there, like, seven times), is talking with a random customer about sex. Either that or how everyone needs at least one cowboy shirt in his or her wardrobe.
The store in Brooklyn that will make a seasoned thrifter stoop to kiss the floor upon arrival is the storied warehouse-like Beacon’s Closet, on N. 11th Street between Berry and Wythe, right across the street from the Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg. They have a fantastic, frequently changing selection of vintage awesomeness with prices that range from penny-pinching to boutique. As is usually the case, the women win with a selection that’s easily 2.5 times larger than the men’s.
A not-as-often reported fact about Beacon’s is that it would appear to be a prime potential pick-up joint, with its clientele of trim and fetchingly tousled young ladies and gentlemen pawing through the merchandise while glancing discretely at each other’s wardrobes and expensive haircuts. “Oh, are you into terrycloth leisure slacks, too? So am I! Wanna wear ’em tonight and join me at Union Hall for billiards and a PBR?”
If you’re in the neighborhood to check out Beacon’s, you might as well check out nearby Buffalo Exchange, too, which recalls a more condensed version of Beacon’s. It’s on the corner of Driggs and N. 9th Street. (Take the L to the Bedford Street stop to visit both Beacon’s and Buffalo.)
Finally, a costume shopper should always consider the cheap-and-nasty poor-people clothing stores in the Garment District, clustered in Midtown around 34th and Eighth, especially standbys like Conway. Shirts, pants, belts, ties and caps aplenty, often for well under $5.