Vintage Comparisons

Earlier this week, Seattlest found ourselves taking part in an activity we hadn't done in a while: sorting through the wares of thrift stores on The Ave. Lately, we've been kinda feening for some end-of-summer sunglasses and shoes (always shoes), so we focused our efforts in those areas. Here's a quick review of our experiences at two local thrift faves---

Red Light
4560 University Way NE
206-545-4044

Sunglasses: We try on a bunch of 'em without much luck. Lots of those oversized grandma styles that're just not too attractive, y'know, unless you're a grandma. There were some smaller frames (which we prefer for our child-sized head); too bad most of those have clear lenses, which ain't exactly our bag. There's one big square pair that almost works, but they don't completely do it for us either.

Shoes: Red Light has a few interesting pairs, including some green and white striped flats that immediately catch our eye. There's a few shoes on clearance for way cheap ($10 and under), but the cute ones are too small and the ones that fit are too ugly---ain't that the truth. We're almost tempted by a pair of $5 black canvas desert boots, except all our friends seem to hate that style of shoe and we don't wish to be mocked.

Other items: We look through the purses, but the selection was small and underwhelming. Besides that, we don't do much other browsing.

Annoying fellow customer: There's a woman dropping off some clothes who has a really terrible laugh. Immediately, this makes us not like her. With Run DMC playing, she asks the employee behind the counter, "Is this the Beastie Boys?" Um, no. We now officially hate her for her ignorance.

Customer service: It takes awhile for the standard issue thrift store chick to stop talking to her slacker friend and actually assist us. Typical.

Buffalo Exchange
4530 University Way NE
206-545-0175

Sunglasses: There's not as many pairs available here, and of those, very few interest us. In fact, the selection is pretty timid. We quickly grow bored.

Shoes: There's a lotta shoes here that we try on. We're donning a pair of red round-toe pumps when we come across some little white square-toe flats with accents of red and orange and pea green. Being such a sucker for bright colors, we stop in our tracks and probably coo. The shoes are very, very cute but just a little too small, and it's not like there's another pair available a half size up. So we're unable to rationalize paying $44 for slightly too-small shoes. Sigh.

We also manage to bruise our thumb trying on shoes (don't ask). Apparently, this is what a shoe horn is for. Double sigh.

Other items: We try on a pair of grey jeans from Marc by Marc Jacobs. They're too long (and they've already been shortened once before), but fit really nicely. We're not gonna spend $48 on them, though.

Annoying fellow customer: Girl on phone loudly talking to father about her school situation next term. "Look Dad, you're not listening to me...why would I sign up for a painting class that conflicts with my other classes just to be a full-time student? That doesn't make any sense..." She goes on like this for over twenty minutes. For the love of God, people, take conversations like this outside.

There was also a sorority girl wearing an ice cream cone sweatsuit which we really didn't care for.

Customer service: After we're done trying on our items, the employee manning the dressing rooms won't let us go back in to check out our companion's outfits. Kinda lame. The girl at the front counter, however, is very courteous and helpful.

As un-hip as it is to say this, we had an overall better shopping experience at Buffalo Exchange. Though the sunglasses selection was far superior at Red Light (and we're pretty sure we'd be able to find something at their Broadway location), all the super-cute shoes at Buffalo Exchange won us over. Perhaps if they lowered their prices just a tad, we might actually buy something.