This was supposed to be a joke. Somewhere between the first and second round of natural wine at Emma’s birthday dinner, someone dared me to recreate iconic movie outfits using only thrift store clothing. Six people crammed around a table in that loud Williamsburg restaurant.
Halfway through their second round, everyone got caught up in that ever-green fashion industry conversation: What costumes were trending murder in your neck of the Internet? And it turned into an argument about what outfits were BEST in movie history, every person talking over each other to defend their favorites. Penny would stop at literally nothing to defend Diane Keaton’s every appearance in Annie Hall.
Tara couldn’t stop ranting about every Zendaya costume ever. Devon, the vintage merchant of the group, kept mentioning Italian movies from the 1960s that none of us had heard of. “I bet I could re-create any movie look with thrift shopping,” I said, raising my half-empty glass of orange-colored wine that tasted like questionable vinegar across the table. “ANY.
OF.
THEM.” It was one of those silences where everyone at the table stops talking—and you immediately regret saying whatever you just said. “Including Cher’s yellow plaid suit from Clueless?” Tara said, knowing my love-hate relationship with all things yellow. “I WILL SHOW YOU,” I said, swirling my wine around like I was far too glamorous to ever actually finish it. “Oh my God, we have to do this!” Emma exclaimed. And before anyone could protest, she whipped out her phone and started jotting down notes. “Harper’s Thrift Store Movie Challenge!” By the time we ate our cake, we’d assigned each other films and created deadlines and a points system so elaborate it would’ve made sense in the moment but would be useless when it actually came time to score each other. (Spoiler alert: Emma was our secretary, so we actually used it.) I woke up the next morning to 37 group texts from Emma and a vague sense of regret. Ah, hangovers.
You know you spend too much time around upholstered furniture when your worst nightmare is another night spent scheming arts and crafts projects with your girlfriends. Sure, I’ve promised ridiculous things under the influence before (Penny still asks why I agreed to hand-sew pillowcases embroidered with each of her cats faces all over Penny’s wedding napkins) but this took the cake. Or…I guess nonexistent cake, since we had gluten-free.
But hey. When life gives you lemons—or in this case, a half-written blog created solely in your head during wine-fueled laughter—I make bad life decisions. So I rolled with it.
As the self-proclaimed thrifting queen of my group of friends, how hard could it be to hit the racks in pursuit of movie-worthy fashion? Plus, hadn’t I watched Wong Fu do the exact same challenge with YouTube wins back in college? Me ripping off iconic movie costumes with thrift-flare seemed like the perfect project to prove that you can recycle before buying into fast-fashion “homages.” I decided to take on six challenges in six weekends, assigning myself a $50 budget per outfit and only allowing myself to thrift at thrift stores.
Consignment shops and yard sales were fair game, but I wasn’t shopping any online retail—Etsy, eBay, or Instagram vintage hadn’t produced any of my finds, and they sure as hell weren’t going to now. Just me, some bins, and whatever halfway recognizable garments refused to elude my discovery. Round one: Cher Horowitz’s yellow plaid ensemble from Clueless.
My relationship with this look has always been complicated. A) Yellow washes me out, leaving me looking slightly-grey and Deathly-Hollows sick. B) The knee socks brought out the worst in freshman boys at my college when I wore them for Halloween.
But for the sake of kicking this thing off with a “challenge” (Hello, sweatpants emoji from me as I snagged that yellow plaid fabric), yellow plaid it was. My first stop was the Goodwill in Park Slope, which to my excitement already had my base: A yellow plaid skirt that wasn’t as bright as Cher’s original, but a toned-down mustard that I liked even better. It wasn’t pleated, but the all-around A-line silhouette worked.
Bonus points: $8. Finding a similarly bright yellow blazer proved to be more difficult. I checked three stores before finally settling on a women’s yellow blazer at Housing Works.
Plain blue jeans, not plaid, but it was close. $13. The genius stroke? One of the children’s section had a yellow plaid backpack that I could SOS* into pieces to fashion into appliqué patches for my jacket’s lapels and pockets.
Sacrifices were made. $3. Knee socks? $2 at the thrift store. White button-up: Already owned.
Similar-ish Mary Janes from the days when I thought I too could pull off Alexa Chung: Also owned. Breakdown: $26 and one murdered child’s backpack. The final product?
If I do say so myself, not too shabby. Okay, fine. More“Oh-snap-chat-filtercollege-theater-major’s interpretation of Cher Horowitz doing a scene study for her final audition” than actual Clueless, but you could definitely tell what it was supposed to be.
And two separate individuals yelled “As if!” at me when I wore it, so points for that. Emma took pics for Instagram, which ended up getting enough likes to make me forget that yes, I had just murdered a child’s backpack for the sake of arts and crafts. But hey.
Friend groups go hard or go home, amiright? Feeling inspired by my initial success, I decided that we could NOT have iconic movie fashion WITHOUT “Penny Lane’s iconic Shepherd’s outfit” from Almost Famous. Devon threw the challenge out there first—she’s spent years trying to get me to buy a real shearling coat off her shop’s rack. (Our friendship is HEALTHY.) The coat was either going to make or break this challenge, and if I’m being honest with you (and myself), I was stressed.
You can’t thrift a real shearling coat and stay under $50, even at thrift stores. It was either gonna’ bust me outta’ this thang or put me on the struggle bus so hard. I spent two weekends roadtripping to every thrift store within a fifteen-mile radius of my apartment.
Nothing. I was ready to throw in the handmade cardigan when I remembered an odd warehouse thrift store out deep in Queens that my ex used to take me to all the time. When I say warehouse, I mean warehouse.
Step over these mountains of clothes to browse…then step over the clothes to get out again kind of warehouse. Everything was five dollars, whether it was a faded Hanes t-shirt or a luxury brand that was donated by accident. Three hours and one extremely dirty hot dog from the vendor outside later, I FOUND.
IT. A light tan suede coat with a fuzzy shearling lining that had clearly been worn since the before Obama’s dad was president. I didn’t care.
It was perfect. $5. I marched right down to my local dry cleaner, who looked at me like I’d washed my dog at home when I asked if they could clean it. But it was worth every dollar of my $40 dry cleaning bill to know that bacteria wouldn’t spread across my body when I put it on. (*Did I mention this was health.expense, too?) Pairing pieces together was a breeze after that: Flared jeans from Beacon’s closet ($12), a vintage band t-shirt I found folded in a bin labeled “99 cents” ($3), and those tiny oval sunglasses I picked up from the same guy on the corner selling fake designer bags ($5.).
Oh, and I borrowed Devon’s crochet bag to round out the look. She suggested we shoot it in Prospect Park and thankfully, AGREED. At sunset, no less.
I have to say, though. I rocked that bitch. Like, legitimately felt like I should be following a cock rock band across the country.
I got some suspicious looks from dog parents who presumably thought I was getting ahead of the winter season, wearing shearling in mid-May, but… whatever. You can’t please everyone. Challenge number three: Audrey Hepburn’s Givenchy dress from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
BASIC AF but so underrated difficult-to-recreate because of the fabric and cut. I was feeling really confident after my first two outfits, so I thought I had this in the bag. Wrong.
I checked every thrift store within a 20-block radius of my apartment and got literally nowhere. NOTHING. Fine.
Maybe my fancier neighborhood thrift stores didn’t have what I was looking for. Sometimes, you gotta’ branch outside of your comfort bin. I checked out two stores on the Upper East Side—targeting wealthy women who may or may not donate good black dresses—and struck gold at a consignment shop on 86th Street.
A simple black sheath dress with the perfect neckline—minus the=cut out at the back, of course—but fits my mini-Bohemian chic vision. $15. WHAT? $15 and it said “dry clean only” on the label FROM A DESIGNER THAT SOLDERS AT NET-A-PORTER? I felt dirty profiting off this find.
Finding cute pearl necklaces at thrift stores is like locating wild hamsters in the woods. Possible? Sure.
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Likely? No. Thank god I stopped by a charity shop (profits helped stray CATS.
Or children with cancer. One of the two) and found a multilayer pearl necklace for $7 to complete the look. Sunglasses: Same dude as Challenge #1. $5.
Black gloves were $8 at a vintage shop after they heavily discounted the pair I liked because there was a slight tear in one of the wrists. And the tiara? Fine, I cheated.
But lightly. Borrowed a rhinestone flower headband from Emma’s “bought these for themed-parties and never wore them again” collection. Our photoshoot took place—at 5AM on a Sunday—outside the real Tiffany’s on Fifth Ave.
Surprise surprise, this attracted some confused and less than thrilled security guards and an entourage of drunk club kids stillattempting to make it back to their apartments. Fun fact: One of those club kids happened to watch Almost Famous and recognized the outfit, which led to him following us around, taking selfies with me, and subsequently what you see below. Happy Mothers Day to photos where someone who looks like she belongs in a rap video is trying to hug the life outta’ me. “My spirit animal is Holly Golightly,” he told me, punctuating his sentence by hopping in mine and braining me with my own earrings.
If I had to pick a favorite, it was this look. Tackling something modern made it way easier to thrift, but also allowed me to get creative with accessories. Challenge number four was Lady Gaga’s pork pie hat pink outfit from A Star Is Born.
Did you think I WASN’T doing Gaga? OBVIOUSLY I WAS DOING Gaga. Because I’m That Person.
Specifically, I was dipping into Baronessa’s old (read: ACCESSIBLE) repertoire and re-creating her iconic pink gingham maternity ensemble from when she played Daisy in that new Barbie movie. Everyone and their mom was talking about that film’s fashion so it was only right I hop on that gravy train. Spoiler: Turns out little old me was riding that train BEFORE it became popular.
The dress was honestly one of the easiest pieces I’ve thrifted in a WHILE. Pink and white checked sundress that was probably intended to be a sun-flare? Check.
Yellow hip bone and all. $6 at a church basement sale in Bed-Stuy. It wasn’t as fitted as Gaga’s dress in the movie, but hey. Close enough.
White cat-eye sunglasses found easily at the accessories bowl of a local vintage shop. $3. White headband: PURCHASED FROM MYSELF AT A GIANNI VERSACE LOW-KEY COSTUME PARTY FROM YEARS PRIOR. Those damn pink pumps were another story.
After scouring EVERYWHERE for solid-colored heels in my size that weren’t charcoal gray or nude, I settled on a pair of white heeled sandals I found at Goodwill ($10) and spent way too much time meticulously painting with hot pink fabric paint I already owned from who knows what failed DIY project. The results? Came out looking like a toddler’s arts and craft project.
BUT IF YOU STAND FAR ENOUGH AWAY and put a filter on the photos, they work. Trust. I wore the whole thing out to the farmer’s market and got literally stalked by a TRIBE of tween girls who followed me around the entire farmers market taking pictures.
I hope they kept them because yes, I looked like a Barbie *somewhat* rocking it, but also maybe someone should’ve told those girls their mom was dressed like a Ken doll shopping for vegetables? Recreate number five was a risk I was willing to take: Mia Wallace’s iconic white button-up and black pants from Pulp Fiction. What could possibly go wrong by attempting one of the MOST HARDCORE movies outfits of all time? !
A lot. As it turns out, finding the PERFECT oversized white button-up with the proper collar was WAY harder than I anticipated. Had to venture to the SALVATION ARMY and dig through the men’s section to find a usable shirt ($4, friends).
Black straight leg pants came from a Hipstery consignment shop in Bushwick ($18, also friends) and white ballet flats from…I really doubt you wear black ballet flats and don’t own a pair already. DIY tip: When you bleach your hair and accidentally turn it the same orange color as Your Favorite Influencer’s highlight, you end up with some fashionable white shoes. Amirite?
The wig was where I had to get REALLY creative. After tallying up how much money I’d already spent, no Halloween store-quality wig was going to fit into my budget. Luckily, I have a friend named Tara who used to be a professional stylist for photo shoots.
Tara ALWAYS has random accessories she steals from hair vendors and art students hiding in her apartment, so I reached out and asked if she had anything black and girl-haired I could borrow. She texted me back a picture of what can only be described as a Black Panther-inspired black bob wig and told me it had “been washed” since its last usage. Um, thanks?
But I borrowed it anyways, along with her(“ HI GURLS IM ONE OF EMANGES FRIENDS IM IN @THATTRELIFE CHANNEL AND IM STOKING”) caveat that she would “kill me if it showed up in your hair” because of…. reasons. Enter: David, my random Colombian neighbor I’ve known for literal years and was dying to flex to about my #OOTD when I texted him we needed a John Travolta stand in for photos. Spoiler: We did not recreate the heroin overdose scene.
Damn promise of alcohol got me every time. Truthfully, I think this was my second favorite recreation. Sure, Mia probably shopped at Prada and I shopped at Goodwill.
But c’mon. Mia wears the exact same ugly-ass sneakers that are currently on every Influencer’s feed and I managed to score a white shirt and high-wasted jeans? Call me when you find that deal at Loehmanns, honey.
For round six, I decided to get nostalgic. Literal iconic nostalgia and go full-basic with a recreation of Diane Keaton’s signature menswear-inspired looks from Annie Hall. As you may or may NOT know by now, this entire idea was PENNY’S, who immediately suggested we recreate Diane’s wool vest/tie/khaki combo that we all pretended to understand when we watched in English class.
Thankfully, this was by far the easiest outfit to thrift. Reason 1: It wasn’t far off from how I LIKE TO wear menswear on the weekends. Reason 2: DID I MENTION I LIKE TO WEAR MEN’S CLOTHING?
Wide leg khaki pants from a vintage shop in Greenpoint ($14), oversized vest from Goodwill (*shout out to my shady queenDavidsons corner in Chelsea ($7), White button-up I already owned from THE SALVATION ARMY ($4) and a tie from a bin labeled “1 dollar each, or 7 FOR FIVE DOLLARS” *greatly exaggerated eye roll*. The only piece that gave me any problem was the hat. I couldn’t find one exactly like Diane’s and decided to settle for a brown fedora I found at the bottom of a Goodwill Halloween bin.
THREE dollars. Worth every bill for that dope slightly crushed texture that made it. Total outfit cost me: $29.
Second cheapest thing I made after Challenge #1, but goddamn if it didn’t feel like I slayed. Photos were taken in CP while I awkwardly hugged trees and REALLY leaned into my inner Diane Kean-don’t-care energy.
FAIL.
I guess I proved my drunken stereotype. Six iconic outfits recreated with thrift shopping rather than Supports Fast Fashion Companies That Steal Other Designers’ Ideas money AND under $200. Did I mention the cost of dry cleaning the Almost Famous coat? (Plot twist: I deducted that from my “grocery” budget because we all know dry cleaning is basically a HEALTH expense.) Ask yourself this, friends: When’s the last time you saw someone rocking a Carrie costume from Sex and the City and thought “damn, that Michael Kors gothta have cost them” versus when DID you see someone wearing something from the Goodwill and immediately judged their entire life based on their laundry habits?
Exactly. Yes, these costumes were FAR from perfect. No, I will never wear half of these pieces again because Why yes, that jacket does have a butt stain I can’t seem to get out.
And of course, there’s always the looming question of where these clothes have BEEN before ending up in your hands. But hey! At least I KNOW these fabrics are sticking to ONE body at a time instead of ending up in a landfill in a few months. #PROTIP Emma wants to do music videos next.
And while I told her I needed to take a full month to recover before we started that endeavor, there’s a part of me that’s already mapping out where to find Madison’s angel wings from Girl Power. Some challenges are just too hard. *eyes natural wine booth across the street*
