It seems mad to say that shops that are run entirely on customer donations often have individual styles, but it's true. The charity shop family is well-defined in my mind. There's the older lady in lemon crimplene with porcelain horses on her mantelpiece. There's her nephew in denim and his wife in a floral shift dress. There are the cool students in jackets, jeans and boots, listening to vinyls.
Then there's Shelter on Nicolson Street, their renegade 90s grunge-mix rebel cousin. She wears a man's leather jacket five sizes too large over a flamenco dress. In her lace-cuffed socks, Doc Martens, and fluorescent beads, she mooches along the street listening to Garbage.
Though charity shops in general are experiencing something of a rebirth with the vintage revolution, Shelter seems to be treading its own path. Rather than the space and carefully-arranged rails of many of its relatives, when I walked in it was cramped, chaotic, and colourful. I found a mad garment in there, which I could only assume was, once upon a time, worn by a pantomime dame, and which refused utterly to stay still in my hands but turned itself over, ruffle over ruffle, until I had no idea what I was holding. If I'd even known to begin with.
The whole experience was a bewildering joy. One of my most fun moments in the day is staring at the wardrobe in the morning and figuring out what to do with myself today. I've found a new go-to place to spark up those moments. I didn't find what I was looking for, but I found a dressing-up box I didn't want to leave. read more