Affordably Avant-Garde: Fashion On A Budget
Art and Fashion
What’s the point of rocking designer jeans when the pockets are empty? Sure, your bedazzled buttocks and iron-pressed Armani what-nots can stun the catwalk, but fashion can be quite the parasitical leech to one’s bank account. A Saverstag-littered trail to headhunting scalpers, an entangled rat king of cheaply quick fabrics from Shein, the rinse-repeat resurrections and executions of erstwhile trends — and all I’m fucking hearing is a dreadful “slurp, slurp, slurp.” Adapting a sense of style is second nature, but we never expected it to get so out of hand. There has to be some decent outfits left that bust the mold but won’t break the bank. Luckily, you’re in the presence of someone who has the knack for a type of “urban excavation” — whether swan diving into all lost media to show-and-tell on Secondhand Screenings or maybe magnet-fishing the office’s parking lot for stray nails (152 and counting). Let’s see if we can pull a fulfilling fit!
Formulating some ground rules before running amuck was necessary. I threw out the major fashion conglomerates: your still-kicking mega malls like Fashion Place or City Creek, family superstores or niche boutiques being eaten alive by cheugy tumblers and 3D-printed slop. This left me with our thrifted goods, which I thought was reasonable on a $100 budget. My first stop was Plato’s Closet in Draper, who were in the midst of a back-to-school shopping stampede. I found a few leftover items like a pair of ivory-leather dress shoes with massive stitching, as if Ed Gein mutilated some poor nobody into footwear. I just couldn’t justify the $45 for dead man feet. However, I did manage to walk out with a thick, stainless steel ring with an encrusted amethyst stone ($10). Where is it now? Check my back seats, would you?
The next few stops were striking me out… HARD. Uptown Cheapskate cracked open some Y2K time capsules with a line of JNCO jeans, spaghetti straps and Element tees (likely comes with a Homies doll in every purchase). All of it was adjusted to the 2026 inflation, making these fossil fits untouchable. Tommy Bins added a sanitized, disinfected consignment to the bin-hopping approach you’d find at the Goodwill Outlet. Yet where you could find an actual loaded firearm mixed in with stained bedding at Goodwill, you’re going to need one when warding off the hoard of Depoppers and hypebeasts at Tommy’s. And don’t even get me started on Deseret Industries with their endless racks of ill-tailored blazers, advertisement “souvenir” tees and the layered mounds of disfigured paperweights forming sedimentary compounds.
Such fashion rehauls call for a professional. Yet again, my silver lining was dawned in chrome and a hand-knitted little number. Recruiting the stylings of saltcrypt Arthur Diaz was a no-brainer when I pulled up to Pibs Exchange. It was like watching the maestro composing a symphony, running around the curled aisles, comparing and contrasting all sorts of patterns and garments. Nothing was off the table either — Grateful Dead tie-dye with short skirts, Southpole jeans paired with Miami Saint Laurent, handkerchiefs and furs colliding with rave gear like Holi powder in big puffs of pigments. That’s when it hit me: maybe I was taking this way too seriously. No nitpicking the racks in some defiant act of aesthetic treason — just have fun! I grabbed bunches of articles, some clothes I would never see me wearing in this century and decided to test them out. Whether or not they would fit (this unofficial columnist comes in the huskier variety) is a different story. I did get a cool camouflage vest out of it, though.
Some may think this shopping spree was a waste of a weekend. However, there was something special about not giving a fuck about brands and labels. The nonsensical nature of what looks good comes down to how you feel in it. Be presentable, be dumpy, be yourself with whatever that may be. In the end, this mission to find an affordable fit simply became four people, including my wonderful photographer Victoria Hills, hanging out at a local business and having a kickass time.
P.S. If you’re a small size lass buying all the bigger guys’ clothes because you like the “baggy look,” I hate you.
Read more from the misadventures of Alton Barnhart:
Forty Years of Needle Drops: Celebrating Graywhale
Blackjack and Bombs Away: 24 Hours In Wendover
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