First Time Thrifting: Scholarshop

Location: Scholarshop in Clayton, 8211 Clayton Rd, St. Louis, MO 63117 (314-725-3456)

I've already lied to you in the title as I now recall that I've been thrifting a number of times in high school, but never with the intention of actually buying clothes and mostly just to look for cheap trash to tinker with at Goodwill or something for swordfighting. I remember getting a cute mini Hello Kitty backpack somewhere for $3 and that red knit beanie for 75 cents. Avalon Exchange barely counts as thrifting, since the Loop location is liable to jacked-up prices from tourism and college students. So this is my first intentional act of thrifting for fashion's sake. And boy was it long and memorable.

As most of you might remember your first time walking into a thrift store: like a Forever 21 filled with strange smelling, unique things gathered in about just as organized a fashion (my mind's already screaming with claustrophobia). Overwhelming. Well, the best way to view it is treasure hunting, as "one (wo)man's trash is another (wo)man's treasure." After a harrowing hour or so, I had it narrowed down to about 8 items for the fitting rooms.

The cool thing about Scholarshop is that all the profits go to fund scholarships for St. Louis kids. If there's anything I want to give back to this city that's housed me during these four years of college, it's a firm education future for the children. I don't just say this in a sappy first world problems sort of way ... there's a lot learned from doing community service for their families, the ones that can't even scrape together enough to pay for electricity and hot water, let alone dream of sending their six kids to college. So, you bring together shoppers with unquenchable thirsts for new thrift finds at affordable prices and voila, it's a start for helping.

What was I hunting for? Mint. Pastels. Clearly in the mind for spring, and mostly mint. I grabbed anything that looked pale-ish green or blue haha as you can see from the nice array hanging behind me in the fitting room. Clearly distracted by the beautiful dresses and gowns and heavily beaded numbers. Thrift stores are a great way to dive into a trend without spending much money at all - this mint blouse and I are MFEO and it was only $7!

Here's the quick breakdown of the Scholarshop experience: the customer service left me alone for the most part, which was nice since I snapped so many pictures (thanks!). The clothes were all in great shape and man were there a lot of racks. The hours aren't that long so they close promptly at 5 PM on Fridays, which is when I went with two of my friends, Alice and Jessi (thanks Alice for taking the photos of me!). The fitting rooms were spacious and the lines are pretty long sometimes towards closing time. Children's and men's sections didn't yield much to me upon first glance. And luckily quite the pick of small-sized pieces if you look hard :)

Would I come back? Definitely!

Amazing dark brown leather bomber jacket for $15 but sleeves are too short to be practical

Check out this $15 dupe for the Marc Jacobs/H&M foldover plastic clutch last fall/winter

Left: casino royale sweater Alice later picked up; Right: sticker shock for the green ballgown: $195!? It was size 10 though and cleverly binder clipped in the back

The haul: simply can't resist this spring-set deal, $7 mint blouse that fits PERFECTLY and $18 designer yellow pencil skirt (38?) but runs small. Can't wait to style and shoot this outfit!

Readers - what's your favourite place to go thrifting?