I’ve been thrifting since before it was cool. Actually, scratch that—I’ve been thrifting since it was actively uncool, back when admitting your clothes came from a secondhand store would get you the kind of side-eye usually reserved for people who bring tuna sandwiches onto crowded elevators. My earliest thrifting memory involves my mom dragging me to the Salvation Army on McGuinness Boulevard when I was twelve, me whining dramatically about the weird smell while she methodically flipped through racks of castoffs, pulling out silk blouses and cashmere sweaters with surgical precision.
“Harper, look at the stitching,” she’d say, turning a blazer inside out to show me the construction. “This is how you know it’s well-made.” I’d roll my eyes and wander off to flip through the weird record collection or try on ridiculous hats, secretly loving every minute but too middle-school-cool to admit it.
Flash forward fifteen years, two fashion degrees, and one moderately successful career later, and I’m basically a professional thrifter. I can scan a jumbled rack at Goodwill and spot real silk from fifty paces. I know which rich-lady neighborhoods donate the best cast-offs. I have an entire Instagram highlight dedicated to “things I found while thrifting that made me gasp audibly.” My apartment contains no fewer than seventeen vintage silk scarves, a collection of 1960s costume jewelry that would make Elizabeth Taylor raise an eyebrow, and enough vintage denim to clothe a small Midwestern town.
But of all the secondhand treasures I’ve accumulated over the years, one random find stands above them all—not because it’s the most valuable or the most designer or even the most objectively beautiful. It’s the piece that gets me more compliments than anything else I own, despite costing less than my morning coffee habit.
Here’s how it happened: Three years ago, I was killing time before meeting a friend for dinner in a neighborhood I don’t usually frequent. I wandered into a tiny thrift store wedged between a laundromat and a bodega—one of those places that looks like it might actually be a front for something else because how do they pay New York rent selling used napkin rings and water-damaged paperbacks? The shop had no discernible organizational system. Cocktail dresses hung next to children’s snow pants. A box labeled “Kitchen” contained mostly VHS tapes and one lonely tennis racket.
I was about to leave when I spotted it, crumpled in a bin of what appeared to be tablecloths and curtains: a men’s silk bowling shirt, probably from the 1950s, in a shade of teal so saturated it practically vibrated. The back featured embroidery spelling out “Mike’s Auto Parts” above a stylized wrench and gear design. The collar was perfectly worn in that impossible-to-fake vintage way, and despite being at least seventy years old, the silk was still in remarkable condition save for one tiny cigarette burn near the hem that somehow added to its character rather than detracting from it.
It was a men’s large, which on my frame reads as fashionably oversized. The price tag, scrawled in Sharpie, said $6.75. Not $6, not $7, but very specifically $6.75. I still wonder how they arrived at that exact figure.
“That’s a good one,” said the elderly woman behind the counter as I approached with my find. “My husband brought that in with a bunch of other old stuff from his cousin’s garage. Nobody wanted it.” She carefully wrapped it in tissue paper like it was a Dior gown rather than a discarded bowling shirt, and I fell a little bit in love with her.
I wore it the next day to the office, tucked into high-waisted jeans with the sleeves rolled up and a handful of gold bangles to dress it up. Walking through the Style Compass USA offices, I got no fewer than seven compliments before reaching my desk. Our notoriously picky creative director actually stopped me in the hallway to ask where I’d found it.
“Vintage,” I said vaguely, which is what fashion people say when we don’t want to admit something cost less than a movie ticket.
“Fantastic,” she replied. “Wear it for the team shoot next week.”
That shoot—a “meet the editors” feature for our website—ended up being seen by approximately eight bazillion people because our social media manager boosted it to promote our site redesign. For months afterward, I’d get Instagram DMs asking about “that amazing blue shirt” and where they could find something similar. I began linking to similar vintage options in my stories and even wrote a guide to hunting for vintage bowling shirts that became one of our most-read pieces that quarter.
The shirt has since accompanied me to Paris Fashion Week, where a street style photographer stopped me outside the Dries Van Noten show (I’d paired it with a vintage Yohji Yamamoto skirt and my one investment-piece Prada boots). It’s traveled to industry parties where I’ve been asked if it’s from the latest Gucci collection. It’s been featured in no fewer than three “week in outfits” roundups on our site, always generating comments and emails.
And here’s the truly magical thing about this $6.75 find: it’s become my secret weapon. Feeling insecure about attending an industry event where everyone will be dripping in designer? Mike’s Auto Parts bowling shirt to the rescue. Having a day where nothing in my closet seems right? Mike never lets me down. Need to look creative but not try-hard for a client meeting? Mike’s got my back.
I’ve since styled this shirt probably fifty different ways: tucked into pencil skirts with heels for a high-low mix, over vintage Levi’s with sneakers for weekend coffee runs, layered under cashmere sweaters with just the collar peeking out for winter, even as a lightweight jacket over tank tops in summer. I once wore it to the beach over my swimsuit and got stopped by two different women asking where I’d found it.
The irony doesn’t escape me that in an industry obsessed with the new and the next, my most successful, most photographed, most complimented piece is a decades-old men’s bowling shirt found in a jumble of castoffs. It’s a reminder of something I try to convey in everything I write: true style has never been about having the latest thing or the most expensive thing. It’s about finding pieces that speak to you, that feel like an extension of your personality, that make you stand a little taller when you wear them.
Since finding Mike (yes, I now refer to the shirt as a person, and no, I’m not seeking treatment for this), I’ve doubled down on my thrifting efforts, hunting specifically for similar one-of-a-kind vintage pieces with character and history. My collection now includes a 1960s gas station attendant jacket with “Jerry” embroidered on the chest, a silk scarf commemorating the 1964 World’s Fair, and a hand-painted denim jacket featuring an impressively detailed desert landscape that I found wedged behind a rack of Halloween costumes in a church basement sale.
For those looking to find their own version of Mike, here’s my hard-earned thrifting wisdom:
Look beyond the obvious. The best finds are often not where you’d expect them. Cheque the men’s section, the miscellaneous bins, even the linens (vintage scarves often get mistakenly categorized as table runners). My friend Emma found her favorite vintage kimono jacket in a box marked “Curtains/Drapes.”
Don’t shop with a specific item in mind. The magic of thrifting is in the unexpected discovery. If you go hunting for a specific piece, you’ll likely be disappointed and miss the treasures right in front of you. I wasn’t looking for a bowling shirt that day; I was open to finding something interesting.
Cheque for quality markers. Vintage silk feels different from modern polyester. Look at stitching, fabric content labels (if they exist), and construction. Turn garments inside out—well-made pieces often look nearly as good on the inside as they do on the outside.
Ignore sizes. Vintage sizing is wildly different from modern sizing, and many amazing pieces can be worn oversized or altered to fit. I’ve found some of my best oversized vintage blazers in the men’s section.
Visit rich neighborhoods. I know this sounds calculating, but the thrift stores in wealthy areas often have higher-quality donations. My favorite hunting grounds include the charity shops on the Upper East Side and in certain parts of Brooklyn where wealthy empty-nesters are constantly Marie Kondo-ing their closets.
Build relationships with shop workers. The woman who sold me Mike now sets aside silk scarves and interesting vintage pieces when she sees them come in. I stop by every few weeks, and about half the time she has something tucked away that’s “very Harper.”
Be patient and persistent. Great thrifting requires time and frequency. Make it a regular habit to pop into your favorite shops, as inventory changes constantly. Some of my best finds happened on quick, random stops when I had ten minutes to kill.
Look for the story, not the label. What makes my bowling shirt special isn’t a designer name—it’s the history, the character, the embroidery that connects it to a real place and person. These are the details that make vintage pieces conversation starters.
The beautiful thing about secondhand fashion is that it’s both a treasure hunt and a form of recycling. Each piece carries the energy of its previous life while taking on new meaning in your wardrobe. My bowling shirt had a whole existence before me—nights at the lanes, the smell of beer and cigarettes, the camaraderie of Mike’s Auto Parts team victories and defeats. Now it has a second life attending fashion shows and editorial meetings, probably a journey its original owner never could have imagined.
Last month, I wore Mike to a panel discussion about sustainable fashion. Afterward, a young fashion student approached me to ask about breaking into the industry. As we chatted, she complimented my shirt, asking if it was from some cool indie designer she should know about. I told her the truth—that it was a $6.75 thrift store find—and watched her expression change from polite interest to genuine excitement.
“That gives me hope,” she said. “So much of fashion feels inaccessible when you’re starting out.”
She’s right, of course. In an industry that often conflates value with price tags, that worships the new and the exclusive, there’s something revolutionary about celebrating the random, the overlooked, the second-hand. My career has given me access to designer samples and fashion week invites, but some of my most joyful fashion moments have involved triumphant thrift store finds.
So here’s my fashion editor advice, worth exactly what you’re paying for it: Find your version of Mike. It might be hiding in a forgotten corner of a thrift store, waiting to become the unexpected star of your wardrobe. It probably won’t cost much, but its value will be immeasurable—a perfect expression of your personal style that no one else in the world will have.
And isn’t that more exciting than showing up in the same expensive designer piece everyone else bought this season?
As for Mike and me, we’re celebrating our third anniversary this month. I’m thinking of getting the shirt professionally framed when I eventually retire it from regular wear, though that day seems far off—the silk shows amazingly little wear despite constant use. In fashion’s relentless cycles of in and out, it remains my one true constant. Not bad for $6.75 and a lucky glance into a bin of castoffs.
