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Good for your island, good for your Earth, good for your look.
There are probably few people in the world more bored than Nantucket teenagers in the winter, trying to find something to do. Once summer ends, the island is like a ghost town — empty, probably haunted. My high school friend group turned to thrifting. On the weekends. After school. In senior year, during lunch break. We walked on over to Fairwinds’ Seconds Shop on Sparks Ave. and spent whatever time we wanted to kill sifting through the racks for something new to hang up at home.
In the spring, when the anticipated and adored Hospital Thrift started up for the season, we hurried into our friends’ car once the bell rang to try to make it downtown before the little shop on India St. closed for the night.
But, in the dead of Nantucket winter, when it felt like the sun only shone for two hours a day, we trudged to Island Treasures, which has moved from downtown to a new location over by the airport, or The Rainbow Fleet on Orange Street. These two shops were the only two with dressing rooms, and coincidentally, a great selection of weird prom dresses.
Behind the desk at The Rainbow Fleet, I usually found owner Kristen Hull or island artist and self-proclaimed fabric addict, Casey Boukus. Casey works in theater costume design, sews original textile pieces, and can always be seen wearing something bright, flowy, or tie-dyed.
“I’ve always been drawn to costumes since I was a little girl, then when I started sewing, I liked the idea of using secondhand fabrics rather than going out and buying something new. I love using materials that have already served one life for something and making them into something new; there’s a lot of fabric waste that goes into our landfills,” Casey said.
On racks around the store, Casey’s one-of-a-kind pieces — patchworked pants, skirts, and dresses — are tagged for sale, along with unique vintage curated from Kristen’s network of island clothing consignors.
“I think it’s great for Nantucket because so many of our actual boutique shops are so expensive. There’s so many people out here that can’t afford to shop at the price point that Nantucket has. And, because we’re such a small finite piece of land, all that fabric, if it gets tossed away, just ends up in the pile where it just sits there, not decomposing very well,” Casey said.
“Thrifting is cheaper,” my friend Marley Viselli said, “and on-island [thriftstores are] the only places with affordable clothes.” Marley frequents the thrift stores with me, and in the pictures, she’s posed wearing one of her wardrobe staples — a thrifted black silk skirt. For her photos, I picked out a black cardigan with patchwork flowers on the front, which made me hope spring was coming soon, even though the freezing weather that day didn’t make it feel that way at all.
For me, thrifting is more than just getting new clothing, it’s like a treasure hunt. The thrift stores on Nantucket always have interesting pieces, from discontinued Talbots pieces to racks upon racks of surrendered Ralph Lauren, to handknit sweaters and skirts that have been hemmed, rehemmed, unhemmed, and hemmed again over the years.
When everyone else and their mother was flooding the bridal stores in April, I slept easy knowing that I’d already said yes to the dress.
“I love clothing, I love the cyclical nature, the idea of vintage as something that is in style and goes out of style and then back in style, the nature of it,” Casey said. “When you’re shopping secondhand or vintage you have a broader spectrum of things to find. When you go into a store and there’s 20 of the same thing, just different sizes.”
In October of my junior year, I went to Island Treasures looking for some new sweaters for the upcoming winter. I found a long, brand-new bronze evening gown, and I ended up buying the dress for $30. I told my friends, “This is going to be my prom dress.” And I did wear it to prom — eight months later. When everyone else and their mother was flooding the bridal stores in April, I slept easy knowing that I’d already said yes to the dress.
The pieces I find myself grabbing off the hangers, every day, even now in college, are the ones I thrifted years ago. I posed with a zig-zag knit sweater that I thrifted fall of my senior year. It had no tag, no labels, just fraying seams and a ripped sleeve. I bought it, swearing that I’d mend the sleeve, but I never did, and I wear the sweater at least once a week. I still happily wear my $5 black velvet low-tops I got from Hospital Thrift last summer, and am excited to see what I’ll find next, when they inevitably fall irreparably apart. All to say, you just never know what you’ll find at the thrift store.
At The Rainbow Fleet, vintage coats get a new life. Read Trying on Secondhand Furs to find out more.
