Fashion for victims
May. 20th, 2005 09:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusHumana is a charity thrift shop which pays for third world development projects. Not only do I buy all my clothes and furniture at the big four-floor Friedrichshain Humana in Berlin, I also give my clothes and furniture back to it free when I no longer need them, allowing Humana to sell them again. I suppose you could call Humana a lending library for material things, a recycling plant for culture, or a perpetual motion machine. It converts consumerism into global justice. In exchange for giving Nick the illusion of "curating" a look out of funky retro stuff, it takes his money and turns it into a village literacy scheme in Nicaragua.
So I was delighted to find a branch of Humana in a Lisbon suburb (the city also has branches of my other favourite funky junk store, Cash Converters). For the princely sum of €8.50 (which will no doubt be put towards an electric water pump in Mozambique) I was able to renew my look. The results are below (click for big version):
I usually shop for clothes with a theme in mind: it might be stripes, clothes that look like pajamas, tie-dye, Chinese military uniform, German folk costume, or Hassidic Jewish gear. When the prices are low you can go crazy and risk things. And because the clothes have all been pre-worn, you know that your costume references aren't just allusions: they're the actual clothes the actual people you're referring to actually wore.
In the Lisbon Humana, a delightful place with a blue-tiled corridor off which lay room after room of clean, cheap and interesting clothes, I thought at first I'd be concentrating on oddly-shaped white smocks which could be layered over other white garments to make a sort of Russian folk look. But then I discovered the tight, slightly flared plaid pants in the €1 euro section, remembered I'd seen a Burberry-style shirt in the first room, added a clean white T shirt and the red plaid shirt, tried it all on and found that not only did it fit, but it smelt fine. Good scent is important: I tend to buy women's clothes, because they're normally more figure-hugging and colourful, tend to be in better condition, and, well, women just smell fresher.
Voila, I feel decadently consumerist and yet also righteously charitable, fresh even as I reek slightly of some deceased Lisbon chick's perfume.
So I was delighted to find a branch of Humana in a Lisbon suburb (the city also has branches of my other favourite funky junk store, Cash Converters). For the princely sum of €8.50 (which will no doubt be put towards an electric water pump in Mozambique) I was able to renew my look. The results are below (click for big version):
I usually shop for clothes with a theme in mind: it might be stripes, clothes that look like pajamas, tie-dye, Chinese military uniform, German folk costume, or Hassidic Jewish gear. When the prices are low you can go crazy and risk things. And because the clothes have all been pre-worn, you know that your costume references aren't just allusions: they're the actual clothes the actual people you're referring to actually wore.
In the Lisbon Humana, a delightful place with a blue-tiled corridor off which lay room after room of clean, cheap and interesting clothes, I thought at first I'd be concentrating on oddly-shaped white smocks which could be layered over other white garments to make a sort of Russian folk look. But then I discovered the tight, slightly flared plaid pants in the €1 euro section, remembered I'd seen a Burberry-style shirt in the first room, added a clean white T shirt and the red plaid shirt, tried it all on and found that not only did it fit, but it smelt fine. Good scent is important: I tend to buy women's clothes, because they're normally more figure-hugging and colourful, tend to be in better condition, and, well, women just smell fresher.
Voila, I feel decadently consumerist and yet also righteously charitable, fresh even as I reek slightly of some deceased Lisbon chick's perfume.
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Date: 2005-05-20 08:55 pm (UTC)I too often have little recourse but to prowl the ladies sections, mainly because that's were the ladies are, but also because menswear has become too generously cut, so as to leave a diminutive man like myself drowning in fabric with suit jackets that come to one's knees, a la Gary Coleman. I've gone down two sizes over the past twenty years, and it is not because of any wasting away on my part.
Womenswear has a wider array of styles and a more snug fit, and has been a staple in my wardrobe since the 80's. As for men's thrift, the elderly gents often shrivel to my size before passing on, so hope remains--but barely.
For the most part, we dapperlings have little choice but thrift or bespoke these days.
W