My RealReal misfires

Thank god this isn't a shopping newsletter.

This week, I bought two dresses off The RealReal, an online marketplace for secondhand, often heavily discounted designer clothing. They were potential options for an upcoming wedding, and neither was a great fit. The better of the two was a ruffled Oscar de la Renta dress; the fabric pattern was sketchy and multi-colored, and it reminded me powerfully of the “Jazz” design on disposable cups in the 1990s. I would have loved to pay homage to my youth, but, alas, it looked like a limp tube on me. An immediate return.

I don’t remember most things I’ve bought and returned. Why would I? I returned them. But The RealReal is different, because it shows you all of your past purchases. (Maybe that’s true for other websites; I check out as a guest whenever possible, despite Alex’s ongoing effort to convince me that loyalty programs are worthwhile, but The RealReal insists that you create an account.) And secondhand or vintage shopping is different: The high of unearthing a wonderful piece, one-of-a-kind and reasonably priced, is more transcendent than any other feeling of shopping-induced euphoria I’ve known. The lows of receiving an item in the mail and finding it lacking are, consequently, lower.

And so. Welcome to my hall of failures.

Exhibit I: Befuddlement

Sometimes you think you’re getting a normal garment and are instead handed a riddle. I lost my mind one night trying to figure out the waist ties on an old Balenciaga wrap dress with a silky, cream-colored top and a black skirt. (I hoped it would make me look like Barbara Stanwyck, which it did not.) How do I explain this? Both straps were attached at the front of the dress, so the wrap dress couldn’t wrap. Alex and I messed around with it, tying it this way and that, trying to figure out its secret. Eventually we gave up. RETURNED.

Exhibit II: A lone boob

Seven or eight years ago, I bought an orange silk Dries Van Noten top that turned out to have a very low neckline — much lower than the product photography had indicated. The shirt was so low and billowy that, without another shirt underneath, I’d have one boob on display, like a self-conscious Grecian statue. My shameful error is that instead of returning the shirt, I got so attached to the fabric and its fluttery potential that I kept it. Every couple of years, I pull it out of storage and stare at it sadly, trying to figure out how to wear it outside the house. RETAINED.

Exhibit III: Greed

I’ve also made some unforced errors. With this next case, I want to make clear that I was maybe 25 years old at the time. My brain had only just finished setting in its Jell-O mold. The item was a peplum Jacquemus jacket in a shocking shade of tangerine. Peplum — a flared bit of fabric at the waist of a top or jacket — was very big in the 2010s, and it was already overplayed by this point. So why did I buy it? For one stupid and basic reason: Jacquemus was very cool at the time, and my brain went all gooey for the brand label and achievable price tag. Like Odysseus without his siren-proof earplugs, I was bewitched, and I forgot to ask myself whether I even liked it.

This is the most important rule of shopping for off-price designer clothing. Never look at the label first! Always assess the garment on its own merits!

RESOLD BECAUSE I MISSED THE RETURN WINDOW.

Exhibit IV: Uptown grr

The Jenny Packham dress was an error of delusion. It was such a fun little thing: sheer, beaded, covered in butterflies and flowers and swirling clouds. To me, it looked exactly like something Brittany Murphy would have worn in Uptown Girls. Sadly, the color was not right for me. I should have known that when I bought it, but I was really hoping that an intern had bumped the light in the studio right before they photographed it. It was a beige-ish mauve that made me look like a Band-Aid caught in the shower drain: washed-out and drab. RETURNED.

If I’d encountered any of these garments in a real-life store, I would have spent a few minutes with them, discovered our incompatibility, and moved on. But having to actually spend the money on an item of clothing — then waiting for it to arrive — raises the stakes. It makes it personal. When it arrives, you are confronted with your foolishness and your hope, and, occasionally, with a great mystery. It can be beautiful, and it can be very silly.

Now please tell me about your weirdest purchases in the comments!

I don’t buy that much stuff,
Eliza