Meghan's £5 earrings: how to spot a vintage bargain
Browsing a charity shop in Fulham, west London, 28-year-old Jender Anomie felt her pulse quicken. Was that a Versace miniskirt for … £2.50? “I thought: ‘I’m going to buy this before anyone realises.’” Anomie, an artist from Bexhill in Sussex, took it home then sold it for £75 on her shopping app Depop. “I probably underpriced it,” Anomie says.
Many of us have friends who are charity-shop pros; masters of the bargain bin; emperors of the kilo sale. In an unlikely turn of events, the Duchess of Sussex has outed herself as a bargain-lover. Arriving at the wedding of the designer Misha Nonoo and the oil and gas heir Mikey Hess in Rome last week, the duchess wore a black Valentino gown accessorised with a pair of £5 earrings borrowed from a friend who picked them up on a stall on Portobello Road in London.
The sensation of walking out of a car-boot sale or charity shop with an absolute bargain is among the greatest of nature’s highs. “My heart stopped when I picked it up,” remembers Isabelle O’Carroll of the moment she found a Burberry trenchcoat priced at £6 in a Brighton charity shop. “When you spot a bargain like that, time stands still,” says the 37-year-old writer from London. “I did a little internal backflip.”
Sometimes, the euphoria is tempered with guilt. One 20-year-old student, Alessandro Koehler from Rome, once found a Helmut Lang denim jacket at a street stall for 50 cents. “I felt as if I was on top of the world,” Koehler says, “but also like I scammed the guy.” Most of the time, you pick up bargains when people don’t know what they’re selling. A 35-year-old journalist, Sian Norris from Bristol, bought a label-less tea-dress on eBay for £27. When it arrived, she realised it was covered in the YSL monogram print. “You can tell it’s good quality,” Norris says. “There’s so much fabric in the skirt.” A 29-year-old podcaster, Riley Quinn, once found a pair of black, calf-length Hermès boots for £20 in a consignment store in Angel, north London. He gave them to a friend. “I have no idea why they were so cheap.”
“I’m addicted to charity shops,” says 24-year-old charity worker Jess Midwinter, who once picked up a 99p Moschino shirt from a charity shop in her home town of Swindon. “I make a big deal of going to all of them. You’re guaranteed to find good things if you keep it up.” Visiting charity shops in wealthy areas is a good bet: when 34-year-old Joanne Gould, from Golders Green in north London, was on maternity leave, she would tour the local charity shops with her pram looking for steals. “I’d find loads of amazing stuff,” she says, such as a black Marc Jacobs dress she bought for £18. Gould also found a red Versace dress on eBay, for £20. “My friends couldn’t believe it.”
Sometimes, a vintage find feels like fate. Once, 23-year-old Annalisa Savi, a student from Italy, was in a charity shop in Walthamstow, north London, when she unearthed a white silk Armani jacket for £7.50. Peering at it, Savi realised it was identical to the jacket her mother wore at her own wedding. “I was like, oh my God.” Savi wears the jacket to interviews when she needs some good luck – she was wearing it the day she met her boyfriend. “I think it works!”