Secondhand Clothing Extravaganza with Mom

Thursday morning I headed to Bay City, Michigan, to visit my parents and attend the adult spelling bee my mother was part of (more on that tomorrow). When I got into town I perused the Bay City Antique Center and found some buttons and two charming collections of fairy tales, one from Hans Christian Andersen and the other from the brothers Grimm, published in MCMXLV (1945, I believe).

Mom and I went to lunch at Intermission Deli then headed over to The Cat's Meow, a higher-end secondhand shop that helps fund a charitable organization. They have nice clothes very cheap, and my mother the coupon queen gets things even cheaper. So we walked away from that store with a bag full of great stuff for about $35 (we each got five things, so it averages out to about $3.50 per item).

While we were there we ran into a friend of Mom's who made a call and got us into her friend Mary's shop, Glad Rags, despite the fact that she had not actually opened for business yet. Mary had just relocated her vintage and unusual clothing shop from Saginaw to Columbus Street in Bay City. And boy-oh-boy did we have a blast there. So much crazy artsy clothing with some more conservative gems thrown in as well. We certainly spent more at Glad Rags than at The Cat's Meow, but it was so very worth it.

Mary has an interesting philosophy when it comes to the clothes in her store. She cuts the sizes out of nearly everything, thus forcing customers to try on the things they like instead of dismissing something as the wrong size when in reality the actual size of women's clothing often has a tenuous connection with the number or letter on a label, especially when dealing with vintage clothing. In addition, there was practically no organizational philosophy that I could see in the racks, though Mary did put some items together or near each other that would be complimentary. I suspect, though, that she had been purposeful about the placement of each item and that she knew exactly where every scrap of clothing was.

Mary made us coffee and chatted with us while we tried things on. She chatted like she was there shopping with us and was very casual, not like some store owners who make you feel sort of uncomfortable because they won't leave you alone.

When we were ready to pay she took our money and tucked it into a round antique tin. There was no cash register in sight. And as we were walking out the door, she took a shirt back off the rack that I had tried on and liked but not bought (because I had to draw the line somewhere). She brought it up to me and said, "Here, Erin, I want you to take this." Just gave it to me. Such a sweet, sweet woman.

One of the best finds at Glad Rags was this pair of vintage green suede shoes for $12. Anyone out there care to venture a guess at the decade from which they hail? I thought they looked sort of 1940s, but Mary thought 1960s.

Regardless of their origins, to find any pre-owned shoes in a size 10 is so very rare. And I found two pair at Glad Rags. Here's the second.

The designer is Nina Shoes, and from what I can tell from their website, their fashion shoes run around $80. I got these for $8.

After our excursion we popped back to Mom's house so she could change clothes, then it was off to the State Theatre for the Adult Spelling Bee . . .

(to be continued)