Thank Goodwill It’s Friday: Thrifting Downtown Austin

By Melissa Massello, October 11, 2013

Howdy from deep in the heart of Texas! Now that we’re (almost) all settled into our new house, things are finally starting to get back to normal, and that means I can get back to my favorite pastime: THRIFTING.

Completely in withdrawal from my weekly trips to the Goodwill Boston outlet, and determined to find my own secret haunts without bias, I decided against asking for recommendations and went old school with a simple, unrated list of locations. (When in the Wild West!) My first few visits to the stores in our new neighborhood (the Goodwill and the Savers on South Lamar, the Family Thrift Center on Oltorf) were so disappointing — three strikes, I’m out! — that I broke down and finally called in the reinforcements, asking my friend Indiana, longtime Austinite and the force of nature behind AdoredAustin.com and the Texas Style Council conference, for her favorite store.

Armed with insider intel, my fellow recent East Coast expat friend Marisa and I packed up our reusable bags, hand sanitizer, measuring tape, and iced coffees (my pro thrifting essentials) yesterday and headed over to Lake Austin Boulevard to check out the Austin Goodwill “boutique.” ZOMG. Clean, with charming and cheerful staff excited to show off their stash of designer scores, the Lake Austin Goodwill is more like a consignment store than a thrift store — though the prices are only just slightly higher than a normal Goodwill.

The first thing I spotted was this gorgeous, tunic-style vintage 80s top ($7.99), and was immediately smitten with its Mandarin collar and cuff covered in ribbons. It has a tiny, pinhole-sized stain (looks like coffee) on the front, but I think I can easily soak it out. The harder part is going to be waiting for it to get cool enough in Texas to wear long sleeves and a polyester blend, because it’s still in the high 80s/low 90s here every day. Seriously.

We also spotted these holographic Stuart Weitzman strappy sandals ($8.99), which are totally on trend right now and seemingly straight off the runways, but alas they weren’t in either of our size. If you’re an 8.5 heel, I would highly recommend running down there now.

Next, on to the silent auction. Vintage Burberrys trench, BCBG (faux?) fur coat, Chanel red leather backpack, Prada platform tortoiseshell sandals (modeled by Marisa, below), and the list goes on. All in mint condition. And the highest bids for any single item hovered in the books around $30 so far. If you happen to be in Austin for ACL or live nearby, I’ll see you at the Lake Austin store tomorrow just before 1pm, when the live auction begins!

My favorite thing to do when Goodwill hunting in any new city is to ask the Goodwill employees themselves which are the best stores, and which is their personal favorite. Carrie at the Lake Austin store was super amazing, and handed us a printed list of all the Austin Goodwill locations, starring and making notes next to her favorites, and she said she’d only worked at Goodwill for a few months. Speaks volumes about why I love the nonprofit, but I digress. Carrie sent us just a few miles up the street to the Goodwill North Lamar location, a ginormous warehouse of a Goodwill store that I’d actually visited before with Amy, Indiana, Jen, and Julie during our first Swapaholics event with TxSC — one of my favorite Austin memories prior to moving here.

On that previous trip, I spotted these totally Texas gems in the North Lamar store silent auction — others I bought & donated to the mix to help “seed” our first TxSC clothing swap, many more I packed up and brought home with me to Boston. After the swap, we also donated all of the clothing that bloggers left behind, and the Austin Goodwill team turned it into a special curated pop-up rack at the front of the store. How cool is that?

Post by Austin Goodwill.

I love that the Austin Goodwill stores do silent auctions weekly, with live auctions every Saturday. Guess where you’ll find me on the weekends from here on out? Thank Goodwill it’s Friday, y’all — and happy thrifting!