Melrose Avenue is a street complete with pink walls, coffee art, and the boujee-est brunch places, but I wanted to see if their thrifting scene lives up to these trendy expectations.
I visited four vintage thrift stores: American Vintage, Flamingo’s Vintage Pound, American Rebel, and Wasteland. All of which were very close together on Melrose Avenue.
The first piece of advice I would give to anybody looking to thrift is if you are on any type of budget, do NOT go to Melrose. The stores I visited had super cute and unique vintage jeans and other clothes, but nothing was as inexpensive as thrifting usually is. That being said, the clothes I did buy were higher quality than local places like Goodwill.
As a high school student who really does not have a large clothing budget, the only place that I could afford anything was American Vintage. I bought a colorful, 50s-esque pair of sunglasses that give total Hollywood Vogue vibes, and a black and white floral and leafy button up. The button up has a point collar, which I absolutely love, and it looks like something straight out of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
After I left American Vintage, I walked just down the street to Wasteland. Even though I could not afford anything from Wasteland, I adored their clothes. They had a wide selection of colorful, sparkly, and super fun heeled chelsea boots that looked like something Harry Styles would perform in. I also looked through a wide selection of modified jeans; they had everything from bedazzled to embroidered to silk-sewed boot cuffs. If I was a millionaire, I would definitely be buying a large portion of my wardrobe from Wasteland.
American Rebel was similar to Wasteland with a beautiful, wide selection, especially of jeans, but there was nothing within my price range. While Flamingo’s Vintage Pound did not have anything that caught my attention, they do have pretty good deals if you are buying in bulk because they price everything by the weight.
Even though I did not buy too much from all the stores, I definitely got some style and designing ideas that I would love to try to add to some jeans or pants in the future. I think Melrose might not be the best place to thrift if the goal of the shop is to buy a wide variety of inexpensive clothing. However, I would totally recommend checking out any one of the many stores the Avenue offers for stylish inspiration and new fashion knowledge, especially because any trip to Melrose is always an adventure in itself.
