In the old days if you were wearing used clothes, you were poor. But ever since the 1960s, when Marxist undergrads wore peasant garb and hippies threw on patchwork, used clothes have been cool. Today platinum fashion brands sell blue jeans in every state of distress. Famous actresses attend award shows in vintage Chanel or Dior. Everything new is old again.
At a resale shop 45 years ago, I would fill up a grocery bag with used clothes for a buck. I had to avoid the old stuff of my acquaintances—especially the private-school kids—lest I bump into them while wearing it. Steve’s and Tony’s used clothes may have informed my preppy aesthetic, but their names would’ve been marked inside the collars. I couldn’t risk the embarrassment.
My father, who grew up poor, always had to wear his cousin’s hand-me-down white dress shirts. Being the bigger boy, he wore the sleeves perpetually rolled up and the collars always unbuttoned. Later in life, after achieving financial success, he became something of a clothes horse, staying abreast of the latest lapel widths and pleat suitability. More than a few times, at the hospital, I’ve seen him, barely a high school graduate, mistaken for a doctor because he was looking so dapper.
At one point, my father became so horrified by the resale schmattas I would wear that I’m certain he began purchasing items just to hand them down to me, saying they didn’t fit him quite right. He was with me once at a Pitt basketball game when I received two compliments within 10 minutes on his old Paul Stuart blazer. His smile was equal parts pride and I-told-you-so.
My nephew has since run vintage-clothing stores in Brooklyn and now in Pittsburgh. In what could be called the “circle of T-shirt life,” I swear I saw him selling one of my discarded youth basketball shirts for 50 bucks. My nephew knows his market: I saw hipsters poring over the holes in a used T-shirt as if they were the Dead Sea Scrolls—except with less structural integrity.
My wife and daughters have caught the resale bug, too. Anyone can pay big bucks for a designer leopard-patterned frock, but the thrill is in bagging big savings. My conceit is that their vintage shopping is a cute eccentricity. In fact, it really has helped me attire four daughters. Do the math. I have suggested they put in a call to their buddies who might be donating clothes, cutting out the middleman entirely.
Here comes Patagonia in from the cold. The company already has succeeded in getting natural-fiber types to wear clothing made from old plastic pop bottles. Now it’s offering to buy back your used coats for recycling and resale. One slogan for this “Worn Wear” is “Scars tell the story.” You imagine buying the jacket of an Everest summiteer or Olympic kayaker. In reality, you are getting the castoffs of a middle-aged personal-injury lawyer. Look for my old gear: The only scars you’ll find were strictly emotional.
Dress for the job you want, the saying goes. Little did I know that I was always dressing to be an eccentric tech mogul, years before the computer was invented. Sadly, I never got the job.
Mr. Weiss is a carpet salesman in Pittsburgh.
Appeared in the September 20, 2018, print edition.