ThriftStyle

With this easy-to-use resource, savvy shoppers can cultivate upscale, upcycled wardrobes at thrift and consignment store prices.

Shoppers will learn to navigate the racks of their local consignment shop, spot name brands like Versace, Dior, and Burberry, select the best quality items, and repair secondhand clothes that need some love. Photo-filled chapters on thrifted handbags, jewelry, scarves, and other accessories show what’s available and give tips for distinguishing quality items from fakes. Interviews with expert tailors, dry cleaners, shoe repair wizards, and fabric-dyeing professionals explain what makes a damaged piece of clothing worth renovating. Before-and-after photos show what can be done to refashion less-than-perfect finds.

About the Contributors

Allison Engel has written articles for Esquire, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and others. She helps run the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities and regularly writes about LA’s fashion scene. She co-authored Food Finds: America’s Best Local Foods and the People Who Produce Them with her sister, Margaret.

Television producer Maricia “Reise” Moore is a thrift-store fanatic. She lives in Los Angeles.

Margaret Engel lives in Washington, D.C., where she runs the Alicia Patterson Journalism Foundation and helped create the Newseum. She was a columnist for Glamour and a reporter for The Washington Post. She co-authored Food Finds: America’s Best Local Foods and the People Who Produce Them with her sister, Allison, and co-wrote three Fodor’s guidebooks.