I've Never Been Vintage Shopping in Charlotte

I have never been vintage shopping. I have been thrifting many many times before. Growing up my mom bought a lot of my clothing at thrift stores, garage sales, etc. When I got old enough to like to shop, I liked finding random things at thrift stores. I bought a couple of formal dresses at Goodwill that I adored, one for Homecoming and one for a drama awards night. Thrifting is really fun because you never know what you will find. Sometimes you strike out, but other times you hit the jackpot. Vintage shopping is another thing. To me this is the uppity version of thrifting - and in my opinion - an excuse to charge more money.

Me and my friend Joey going to Homecoming My BFF Erica and I at "Oscar" Night

I thought that Charlotte might have a good variety of shops to dig through and after some online searching I found a few places that sounded interesting. My friend from work Caitlin is the uber fashionista and so I thought she would enjoy an afternoon of looking through the racks.

After a few delays we got going after work. We stopped at a local coffee house for a quick pick me up and got some rave reviews of the places we were planning on going. The owner of the shop said that she had gotten her wedding dress at one of the stores, a couple of thousand dollars gown for a mere hundred. We were definitely excited!

So our first stop was the Junior League Wearhouse. This is part consignment store and part thrift shop who's proceeds go to help causes that the Junior League sponsors. I had high hopes for this store because their website advertises it as having designer items and such. There were some very nice items, but you were definitely going to pay a pretty penny for them. Some of the consignment items were $50 and up. Not what I had in mind! The store was very nice and clean, but I walked away empty handed.


The next stop was a random antique store. We found lots of interesting items, but again the prices were much higher than I wanted to spend. For example, Caitlin found some vintage Fiesta ware that she had been looking for. One medium size glass mixing bowl was $90. I was really shocked at that. I guess someone is willing to spend that, but not us!

The next store was called Hong Kong Vintage. I was definitely vintage! They had some amazing dresses, funky boots, and retro jewelry. Again, I thought the prices were a little steep, but not out of the question. The store itself is really pretty and well maintained which made it really enjoyable to look around. Caitlin walked away with a bright pink skirt perfect for summer.

We decided to stop and have some dinner at this point to sort of regroup. We selected The Penguin, a diner/drive in burger joint. Our server was a very funny sarcastic guy, the food was really good, and after only one minor disaster with flying ranch dressing we had a game plan. Unfortunately all the other shops we had thought about visiting had closed at this point in the night so we headed off to the next best place - TARGET!

The Target we decided to visit was the one right down town by the Panthers stadium. It looks quite impressive from the outside - multiple floors with a parking garage. However, once you get past all that it really is just a single floor Target with offices on the other levels. We tried on a few things but we ended up leaving with moisturizer and dog food. What excitement!

So maybe it wasn't the best night of vintage shopping ever. Caitlin and I have already started a list of stores we would still like to visit. Be on the lookout for vintage shopping round two!