It's a Wonderful Thrifted Life

Why were there light refreshments at the C.A.T.S. Resale Shop?


It was VIP night!

Yes, I'm quite proud to say I'm a VIP - to a thrift store. After a great sale all week (winter clothes were just $1), the spring fashions were ready to make their debut.

Kind of like Goldilocks, I tried out different fits, of dresses, that is.

This dress was too small (would have been so cute on a summer picnic).


This dress was too big. I love that peacock print, and it still had the original tags on it.

This dress fit just right. I like to call this Bobby Bee creation my Marilyn dress. For thrift, a splurge at $17. I'll pair it with the white Kasper sweater, $3.

Other finds: Gap floral skirt, $8, a lemon Passport top, $6.

A white Newport News cotton top, $3, which I'll wear under this olive Mark (an Avon brand) dress, $5.

Hippieish Rue 21 top, $7.

Cream colored bag, $5, necklaces, about $4 each.

For my standards, this was a major shopping spree. But it was to benefit homeless animals, and I'm getting ready to donate my own unwanted spring clothes to our next clothing swap at work and to the C.A.T.S. shop. Metro reported on the clothing swap fever.

All these items pictured are vegan, by the way.

And the grand total was: $62, for 10 items. I could not buy one full price skirt at Anthropologie for that amount.

I no longer desire expensive fashion, nor do I care about labels. I'm just listing them in case you're curious. I think of the I Love Lucy episode when Lucy and Ethel are in Paris and are coveting a dress from the fictional designer Jacques Marcel. Ricky and Fred play a joke on them and present them with phony Jacques Marcel outfits made out of a potato sack and a horse's feed bag. Thinking they are the real deal, Lucy and Ethel adore them. When they find out they're fraud, they burn them. Unfortunately, Jacques Marcel and his models had spotted Lucy and Ethel at a cafe, and copied the outfits. As soon as the ladies find this out, they suddenly regret burning them. Moral of the story: labels and brand names are largely driven by psychology and perceptions.

What Do Lucille Ball and Kim Catrall Have in Common?

Flashback: 1950's, I Love Lucy. An American icon. I loved watching re-runs as a kid. Still do. Two things that bring no laughter: shows in which she covets fur (in one episode, she actually sleeps in her mink stole she loves it so much), and scenes where the Ricardos light up.

We now know how harmful the cigarettes are that they were smoking. Desi Arnaz in fact passed away to lung cancer. But we should also know how egregiously cruel fur is. Yet so many people, even in 2010, still associate fur with the good life and glamour and many are still smoking (The Wall Street Journal put the percentage of American adults who smoke at about 20%).

Flashforward, 1998-2004, Sex and the City. Fur and smoking are both featured on this marketing powerhouse. Carrie, after having successfully quit smoking seasons earlier, resumes the ugly habit when she lives in Paris in the last few episodes. What about the fur coats she was wearing during the series? Real or fake? Do some of the impressionable women watching know enough to demand faux?

Starlet Kim Cattrall once wore fur and now shuns it, but that hasn't stopped this New York City fur shop from displaying her image.


Doubt the influence of media images like Sex and the City? You can even take bus tours where they point out how you can shop just like Charlotte, Carrie, Miranda and Samantha. The show is a textbook case on the effectiveness of product placement.

Hopefully our society will become more enlightened. Much like a bad horror film, I will never get this video of an animal being skinned alive at a Chinese fur farm out of my mind from PETA. Horror movies are pretend. This act of brutality is not.

So, what do Lucille Ball and Kim Catrall have in common? Their images above are being used to market products associated death. For Lucy and Desi's Philip Morris ads, it has the possibility of causing a slow death by lung cancer. For Kim's image, it's a a certain painful death endured by helpless animals, who come to earth to suffer for our disposable values and wants.

What's the first word that comes into your mind when you see this? I hope not glamorous if you've watched the video.

Learn more about Fur Free NYC. Visit PETA's Fur is Dead site.

Sick. Spotted outside a fur shop on 29th street in New York City.