100 Days, 100 Ties

I have a problem. An addiction, really. To thrift stores, resale shops, what have you. I like finding new ones, and checking them out. And now, I’m sad that one here in Evanston is moving to the city.

Thriftgeek on Davis Street in Evanston is packing up the plantation next week. I stopped in yesterday to say hello, and was bummed to find out that they had not renewed their lease. Co-owner Susan Ganem is sad to go, but they just ended up on a block that was not conducive to much walkabout traffic. Here’s an Evanston Now article about Thriftgeek from last summer.

As a moving sale, the lion’s share of the items in the store are 50% off. Of course, given those prices, I had to take a look at their ties, and I found four new (to me) ones for my collection. After discovering 4 ties that I keep at work in case of forgetfulness (not likely) or soup-spillage, that brings me up to 124 ties. (I should probably also admit that, this afternoon, I dropped off some stuff at Salvation Army on Kedzie and found three more. 127. Yes, I have a problem.)

Tie No. 8...Thin is in

The Tie du Jour (Tie No. 8), purchased at that very session yesterday, brought me a nice compliment today. At a meeting with Northwestern University’s Career Services, Betsy Gill said I was “very Mad Men today.” Somehow I don’t think the gents at Sterling Cooper did their shopping at Montgomery Ward, but I thanked her immediately.

This thin, maroon number (yes, it has a Montgomery Ward tag) with gold thread decor, is fashioned (I use that term loosely here) from 50% Dacron Polyester and 50% Orlon Acrylic. Yeesh, good thing I’m not allergic to crappy synthetics.

Back to Thriftgeek…if you’re looking for fun stuff to decorate your home, office or apartment, it’s definitely worth a trip. They, like me, are very obviously into finding ‘treasures’ and passing them along to folks who’d really enjoy owning them. It’s just fun eyeing all the fun stuff in there, and it’s too bad they’re heading out. But, they won’t be far, and I will definitely make a special trip to visit them in their new digs on the 3800 block of N. Lincoln (3848 or 3858, if memory serves).

Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell & accessorize

Oh, and I also picked up this pocket square, which was probably born as a small scarf. ‘Twas made for this tie, n’est-ce pas? Thanks for reading.

Brooke

This entry was posted on March 24, 2010 at 9:31 pm and is filed under Tie du Jour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.