Throwback Saturday
Bargain Hunters’ Day
A Day for Thrift Stores and Consignment Shops
About Throwback Saturday
Throwback Saturday is a chance to explore alternate timelines, to dress like the version of yourself you once dreamed of becoming. The punk you almost were, the jazzage flapper you wrote a paper about, the goth-adjacent kid who stuck to gray hoodies because wearing all black felt too bold. It isn’t quite a costume party; it’s more of a reveal. The thrift shop is your time machine, the consignment rack your scripture. It’s about trying on old dreams and seeing what still fits. That mesh top from 2004 is, at last, being cycled through your wardrobe. That Matrix-style vegan leather trench looks better than you hoped. You’re finally cool enough to pull it off, or at least too far past caring to stop yourself. The sustainability angle is real (and thrift-store hopping is genuinely fun), but so is the magic of self-reclamation. Go out, try on someone you used to be (or wanted to be) and wear it like you mean it.
Ways to observe
(A) Low effort
Pull something weird and wonderful out of the back of your closet. Wear it to the grocery store. Feel your old self grin.
(B) Recommended
Visit a thrift shop, consignment store, or vintage boutique. Buy one item that unlocks a forgotten version of you. Wear it proudly.
(C) High effort
Host a full Throwback Saturday Style Party. Each guest must arrive dressed in the persona of a former or never-was self. Serve snacks from the corresponding era. Take photos like you’re making an alt-yearbook. End with a runway walk to a song from Sixteen Songs.
Inspiration
Who’s the single greatest fashion muse of all time? Wrong. It’s the Professor from Gilligan’s Island: button-down shirts (always tucked in), straight-leg chinos, sturdy loafers, and a breast pocket for pens or improvised instruments of science. As if J.Crew had been asked to outfit a marooned, erudite venture capitalist. I’ve wanted to dress like him for decades, not in jest and not ironically. And yet I needed a day like Throwback Saturday to finally justify the effort.
That is what today is for: trying on the version of yourself you once imagined and seeing what still feels right. Don the Kangol hat and slip into the ripped band hoodie you bought eight years ago. Today we wear the dream out loud. (Your kids will die of shame. Worth it.)
Adornments
Watch
Velvet Goldmine (1998)
Todd Haynes’s Velvet Goldmine reimagines the rise and fall of a Bowie-esque icon through the eyes of a haunted journalist. It’s a love letter to glam’s androgynous allure and the identities we try on under the lights. Not high art, but a lot of fun.
Orlando (1992)
Tilda Swinton stars in this adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel about a nobleman who mysteriously lives for centuries and changes sex halfway through. As Orlando moves from Elizabethan England to 1990s London, they experience gender, class, and time through fashion.
Listen
Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads
David Byrne’s surreal lyrics (“You may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife…”) pose big questions about identity and life’s unexpected turns, all over an irresistibly rhythmic groove.
Fashion by David Bowie
Released in 1980, this track from Bowie’s Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) struts the line between satire and celebration.
Read
Worn Stories by Emily Spivack
This anthology collects dozens of personal tales, each connected to a cherished item of clothing. Spivack, an artist and editor, invited people from all walks of life to share the story of one piece in their wardrobe.