"You're buying the clothes of dead people!" My mother couldn't understand why I was into buying vintage clothes. I suppose that technically she was right at least some of the time. I remember on one of my first trips to New York  City buying a pair of black leather brogues that were being sold for $5 on the street by an old black man. I was reading a lot of Kerouac back then and I felt very bohemian and hip. I looked with envy at leather jackets other people had scored in shops I didn't yet know about. The search for vintage items that occupied the perfect sweet spot between threadbare and pristine at a reasonable price was an ongoing pursuit in my 20s, and established the identities of me and my circle of friends. People who shunned used clothing altogether were suspicious. There were field trips to out of the way places only accessible by car in far flung suburbs or on the outskirts of the city filled with cheap well curated shirts and jackets and pants that would make us drool. Gradually the shops started to go upscale with prices to match and I started to lose interest. But this day in Rosendale I got re-acquainted with that feeling in a small but expertly laid out shop. Pulling the clothes hangers aside one by one and inspecting textures and labels and colours I felt at home.