Thrift Shop Cosplay
Thrift shops are amazing places where you can find a wide variety of clothes for cheap prices, which makes them a gold mine for cosplayers. I mean, where else are you going to find the perfect pink suit jacket for an Umbridge costume? Stores don’t tend to sell clothes that hideous, but you have a fairly decent chance of finding one in a thrift shop.
Thrift shops are the best places to find unique and unusual pieces of clothing. Unlike your standard clothing store, which tends to try to only keep things people would actually buy in stock, thrift shops will take any type of clothing. So if someone donated a plum velvet suit they bought a few decades ago, you can find it in a thrift shop, becoming the very image of Albus Dumbledore. And before you get skeptical, I have actually found a plum-colored velvet suit jacket in a thrift shop before. People donate some strange stuff.
You also might want to check out some thrift shops if you plan to cosplay any Fantastic Beasts characters any time soon. After all, not many people just happen to have 1920s-style clothing just lying around their house. But clothes like that are available in thrift shops. That’s where my sister and I got our 1920s-style dresses and hats. And they were far less expensive than they would have been if we’d bought them at an actual costume store.
Thrift shops can also help you out even if you’re just planning to go with the standard Hogwarts robes for a costume. True, you might not be able to find all of your costume there. For example, you won’t find many abandoned Hufflepuff robes in a thrift shop. But what about the clothes you wear under the robes? You can certainly find button-up shirts, gray skirts, or dress pants there, and for much cheaper prices than you would in a regular store. You can also find a variety of ties in thrift shops, including ones that match the House colors. That’s where my family found its first Ravenclaw ties, while the stores were still only selling Gryffindor and Slytherin merchandise.
So find out where your local thrift shops are and go check them out! You don’t even need to have a costume in mind to go browsing. In fact, sometimes thrift shops can be what inspires you, showing you a piece of clothing that helps you envision your next costume.
