Okay. I need to tell you about the coat.
Sunday I took the G to Greenpoint, which if you work in fashion and care about thrifting is basically a pilgrimage. The G train is a myth, a rumor, a train that may or may not arrive — but it did, and I made it to Manhattan Avenue by noon.
There's this spot I won't fully name because I am not insane, but it's near Nassau, racks packed so tight your knuckles bleed. And there, between a hideous velour tracksuit and a Juicy relic, was a camel wool coat. Double-breasted. Horn buttons. Lining intact.
Thirty-eight dollars.
I actually gasped out loud like an auntie who found a good deal on vegetables. A guy nearby nodded at me solemnly, one thrifter to another.
Here's the thing about thrifting in Greenpoint that I try to explain to people who think secondhand is gross: this coat is better made than anything at the mall right now. Real wool. Someone's tailor took in the waist by hand — you can see the stitches. This coat had a whole life before me.
Who was she? Did she wear it to interviews, to breakups, to her mother's? I'll never know. I'm just the next chapter.
In my actual job I watch brands pump out polyester garbage that'll outlive us all in a landfill, and then I come home and the most meaningful, responsible, genuinely beautiful fashion thing I do all month is thrifting in Greenpoint for thirty-eight dollars.
Sustainability isn't a buzzword on a hangtag. It's buying the coat that already exists.
I wore it on the G ride home. Fit like it was tailored for me, which, given the waist stitches, it almost was. For someone else. Now for me.
She would've been born in maybe the late 80s judging by the cut. I like to think she'd be glad.
The racks in Greenpoint are waiting. Go dig.
Love,