glow.like.berlin

This right here is a work in progress. Since thrift store shopping is just something that happens to me, like a tornado in a trailer park, a sinus infection, there is as little way to avoid its happening again as there is of knowing when and where it might wrap its sludgy tentacles around my brain

Already discussed in an earlier post, previous occasions have seen me at the likes of Lindt 2nd hand, in Kreuzberg, and Humana, in Friedrichshain.

Gradually, perilously, my experience with Berlin thrift swells like a water balloon left unattended on the hose in the backyard as you run inside to answer the phone and then its just AT&T wanting to talk about your long distance plan (do those still exist?) and the heat makes you forget about whatever sinister plans you had for the balloon and you get a popsicle and check your email and then you drip purple sugar water on the keyboard and have to wipe it off with ur sleeve &then youre like ah crap that was dumb now i have to change my shirt…

What all this means is that the other day I decided it was thrift store day.

having nothing else to do, i gave myself a mission: make a list of thrift stores, hit as many as you can. my scavenger hunt began at this randomly selected an- und verkauf (buy/sell) place in pankow near S+U Schönhauser Allee, found by googling, which turned out to be called “Dies&Das”, in addition to having been permanently closed and gutted since an indeterminate time ago.

its (was) on the corner of schivelbeiner&malmöer str., but dont go there, obv.

still, the visit wasn’t a total waste of time since I had some adventures on the way.

on shivelbeiner str. i discovered a miraculous arachnid.

& all this time i thought spiders were just being rude when they ignore me asking them to fucking stop building homes in the corners of my room.each day brings new facts into my world.

Then on the way back to the train i went into a little chinese dollar store where the elderly chinese shopkeeper talked to me (topic unclear) in what may or may not have been german, but a sweet man, generally. i bought 4 jeans zippers in different colors for 1euro each and considered, but finally abandoned, some peacock feathers (50cents). is that a good deal for peacock feathers? I have never tried to buy them before.

At u2 senefelder platz things really got started; here I visited Memory (Schwedter Str. 2; café next door, same owners; +49 160 650 14348), a vintage store I can confidently recommend.

As hand-picked vintage goes, this is an impressive little boutique.

If ur looking to dig up cheap treasures from piles of junk (my favorite activity, but rare, at least around here) u best look elsewhere. the polyester, bakelite, leather’n'silk, orange, brown and candy-colored assortment here has clearly been pre-selected and priced accordingly, though it’s still remarkably affordable, comparatively.
Scores the highest points in the accessories and household items category, with lots of retro pitchers and tea services and sweet, brightly colored plastic jewelry–a jar of shark bangles in red and blue (4euro each) caught my eye, and some creepy little DDR dog/cat/owl pins were kinda cool too (also 4eur)

if you ever decide you dont have enough pink egg cups….

The selection of clothes, handbags and shoes is small but careful. White button-up YSL corset top for 55 euro? Check. (see pic above). had to make mental list of other things worth 55eur to keep from making it mine immediately.
The owner is a really personable and helpful lady, and happily put my precious SHARP GF-800  weird ghettoblaster device on hold for me for several days while i thought about how my life would be different if i had one. i went back first thing the next day and i’ve never looked back (ended up putting me out 65eur, but worth it). I can even hook it up to my ipod/macbook. also, now i can finally play tapes.2tapes.

also found this cool treasure chest of plastic and metal which i ended up not buying, woulda cost 12 euro, which isnt THAT bad, but still.

Chat with the owner revealed that the vintage business is rough these days, surprise, as most others are too, so help them out! buy weird retro pitchers and not weird IKEA ones.

In this spirit i continued my journey, down to U1/2/3/4 Nollendorfplatz, Kleidermarkt Garage (Ahornstr. 2).

So far, this is really the closest Ive found to quality salvation-army-style shopping in Berlin, with plenty of junk and items of questionable quality to sort through in search of diamonds and rubies and golden emerald treasures.
Items are roughly divided into two separate pricing categories: some are hand-picked and individually-priced; anything without a specific price designation costs 13,99 euro a kg. (30% off “happy hour” on wed. 11am-1pm) (have to say the hand-picked stuff is clearly better, for the most part, but the quality of vintage can be pretty random, natch)
If you for some reason happen to be looking for a vintage fedora your search is probably over. Bins and bins of hats abandoned by old lonely German men seem to be the theme here, about 10 euro each.
Also home to a vast rainbow of bright pouffy, ribbony taffeta 80s-style party dresses.

But I was there for a long time, and somehow in the end the only thing out of the armful of randoms I was carrying around that I couldnt put down was this (prtty xlnt) military-style scarf event (4,99eur)

they did have a lot of scarves, which gets them extra points. sort of makes up for all the abercrombie garbage.

dont be sad! theres more to come.