What are your favorite Los Angeles thrift stores?

January 17, 2010 2:57 PM

What are your favorite thrift stores in Los Angeles, specifically for men's business and formal attire - shirts, ties, shoes, sportcoats, trousers, and so forth?

A few more specifics:

- I will take anything in the LA metro area, but the closer to downtown Los Angeles, the better - Echo Park, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Northeast LA or the East side. But I will go anywhere that is well recommended.

- Is there anyplace in particular where you've had luck finding tailored or bespoke clothing that might take to an alteration? I'm interested in learning firsthand if there is really much difference in a tailored or bespoke shirt and a department store shirt. However, I do not want to pay $120 for a shirt.

- I'm less interested in general tips about the major shops, and more interested in specific location. For example, I know that Out of the Closet can be good; what I need to know is if the Highland Park location is better than the Hollywood location is better than the Santa Monica location is better than the Silver Lake location, when looking for men's formal and business attire.

posted by kensington314 to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (2 answers total)

Here's what I have found: The Echo Park Out of the Closet is great for women's clothing, but pretty crappy for men's (unless you dig shiny shirts in xl). Atwater Village OOTC is smaller, priced higher, but can have some good stuff (it seems to get more vintage old people clothes). The fact that it is smaller makes it easier to assess the racks. If you have the energy to sort, the OOTC "super store" in Glassell Park has some nicely tailored things mixed in with the usual crap, but it's a larger volume to wade through. I've heard that the OOTCs closer to WeHo have better selection for men's stuff, but I've never actually checked them out. And I'm guessing you know to hit OOTCs up on Mondays when they rotate the $1, 50% and 30% tag colors.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 3:13 PM on January 17, 2010

The best menswear thrift I've found is the Goodwill on Vine and Lexington. They've got a huge selection of jackets and slacks, and a pretty damn good selection of nice shirts. I often walk out with 3 or 5 designer shirts at $6 per, and the man who told me about this particular location claims to only buy Italian there. Apparently they see a lot of the wardrobe leftovers from the nearby studios (Paramount, Gower, CBS, etc.). The Goodwill location at Beverly and Fairfax is also well-stocked, but clearly has less to offer than the Vine/Lex location.
posted by carsonb at 4:00 PM on January 17, 2010