I have made a lifetime art out of thrift shopping. Not “vintage shopping” (perusing carefully-edited collections of retro chic finery, cleaned and masterfully displayed – although I love this too), but the down-and-dirty thriftiest of the thrift. Salvation Armies and Goodwills and the odd St. Vincent De Paul Society. It takes strength and determination to wade through these gritty overstuffed racks, but it provides me endless enjoyment. The sport of the chase. While I have found many vintage-store-worthy garments over the years, I have also logged a vast memory of spectacles that make me stop in shock and say, “What? Why? How?” Garments so bad I will remember them always…mostly late at night when thoughts of their horror keep me awake. When I found (ok, created) a kindred thrift spirit in Alexis, it was clear we needed to document these atrocities.
However, much like my favorite-ever thrift store outfit, Pepe, sometimes I find something which stretches so far into wrong that it circles back around into very right. Something that sits on the delicate precipice separating amazingly bad from amazingly good. Finding Pepe refers to the quest for garments that walk this line. While there are a few Pepes in this blog, the majority are just disasters. I post these images as a warning. Those who remain ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.