The St James Madison Avenue Thrift Sale

Every spring, St. James on Madison Avenue hosts a second time around thrift sale. Collar Replacement made a visit to this year’s sale and was able to find some marvelous dress shirts at prices ranging from $10 to $12. There is also a $5 admission to enter the first day of the sale. You are much better off coming day one in order to get first dibs. Both barrel cuff and French cuff were available and were generally speaking in excellent condition though needing some modest mending. Shirts were grouped in racks based on size and each rack contained the corresponding gradations. A few shirts were monogrammed however the overwhelming majority were not. Some of the brands represented included Brooks Brothers, Charles Tyrwhitt, Thomas Pink, English Laundry, Suit Supply and Ralph Lauren. Shirt patterns included plain, checked and striped. Be careful to check the size by looking inside the collar when selecting them. A good idea is to bring a tape measure to be absolutely sure of the size especially since some of them when have been subject to alterations. As far as shirt sizes go, you’ll want the shirt to be your exact size if you plan on wearing it with a tie. If you plan on wearing the shirt without a tie you can generally deviate from your actual collar size by half an inch other way. In terms of sleeve length, while ideally you buy a shirt in your exact length, if there is a shirt pattern you encounter you are particularly fond of but the sleeves are a little long, you can get the sleeves shortened. Given how economically the shirts are sold, even when factoring in some alterations it will still be cheaper than buying a new shirt off the rack. If the collar happens to be frayed, you can replace the shirt collar availing yourself of Collar Replacement’s services. Adjusting a collar size is more complicated as it involves collar splits, it can be done though so if a desirable shirt has a slightly larger collar than you would like, don’t let that stop you.

Some of this this year’s favorite finds:

White double cuff shirts appropriate for evening wear
A purple striped double cuff shirt
A sky-blue shirt with faint red checkers
A green and blue dual color striped shirt
A white shirt with overlapping blue and purple checks.

In terms of repairs, many of the shirts were missing collar stays. This is expected as they can fall out with usage. Additionally, some had a broken button either at the collar or cuffs, where most of the wear is concentrated). Adding new collar stays is very easy to do. You can purchase collar stays for a very reasonable price and insert them into the collar. As far as buttons are concerned, shirts will typically have a spare button either on the inside or bottom of the shirt placket, or by the laundry tag. This can be used to replace a broken button. If the spare button has already been used, you can use a similar ivory colored button. It you are throwing out an old garment, it may be worth keeping the buttons for future repairs. If you find a button that does not match exactly, you can use one of the shirts existing buttons to replace the collar button since that is more prominently displayed and sew the non-matching button at the bottom of the placket which you would normally tuck in so it would not be visible.

To complement your new shirt acquisitions you can mosey over to the tie baskets and search for ties with a complementary pattern and color. Ties are only $2 each so it’s hard to resist. Make sure to check whether any of the ties have stains. If they have stains, these are very difficult to remove especially since they will have been there a while and even a dry cleaner won’t be able to fully remove. Therefore, you are advised to pick out ties without stains.

When purchasing pants, if you find something too long that’s ok since you can get it altered. The same goes if it is too wide. You want to focus on quality and whether there is ample fabric there to enable future adjustments. As far as blazers are concerned, there was a more limited selection available and not too many summer (lightweight and linen) options.

So, to summarize, a visit if well worth your time to find some hidden gems which with some simple alterations are good as new and will enrich your wardrobe.