Smart vintage shopping starts with your nose, and other pro tips

If anyone knows how to score secondhand gems, it’s the members of Vintage Vintage Vintage, who just opened a new brick-and-mortar in a brightly refurbished 1957-era bank in Union Market in Washington, D.C., vault and all.

The 18-person collective is like the Avengers of the pre-owned realm: One member can distinguish silk from synthetic in seconds using only her finger. Another has an encyclopedic knowledge of clothing tags. There are experts in stain removal and leather restoration. They use those skills — along with a slew of other superpowers — to curate and rehab the items they sell, nearly all of which are 20-plus years old and ready-to-wear or use.

Vintage Vintage Vintage aims to be an entry point for the secondhand-curious to begin their journey into the allure of the antique more broadly. Even if a customer doesn’t buy anything, if they’re inspired to go thrifting or secondhand shopping in their grandmother’s closet, “I feel great about that,” says Libby Rasmussen, a co-founder of the collective and curator of Libby & My, which focuses on glassware and other home decor.

Shopping vintage might be intimidating for some people: Will you really find a treasure under that stack of old Afghans, or just more overpriced, mildewy junk to add to your pile of projects?

But there are a lot of great reasons to buy pre-owned items. It keeps stuff from ending up in a landfill; items often are better quality because they were manufactured before a marked decline in production methods and materials; vintage pieces are more insulated from tariffs than new products; and you’re more likely to find something unique.

We asked these vintage purveyors for their best tips to help you confidently shop secondhand. Happy hunting!

Follow your nose

When an item catches your eye, don’t be shy. “Smell things,” Rasmussen says. “Honestly, get up and close to them.” Odors such as mildew or cigarette smoke take serious work to get out. And for items with fur, your nose can help you learn whether it’s been cared for or if there’s dry rot. Take a big whiff so you know what you’re getting yourself into.

It can also help you figure out whether you’ve got the real deal on your hands. For example, to discover whether the jacket you’ve found is legit leather, “smell it, because leather will smell like leather and plastic will smell like plastic,” Rasmussen adds. “You can’t hide that.”

Gather tactile clues

Your finger pads are your allies. Touching something can help you figure out whether you will actually want to wear, sit on or otherwise interact with it. But that’s not all.

To determine the quality of a sweater, for example, “the key is to touch it, to feel it. You just do feel the difference,” says Heather Ramey, curator of Noble Vintage Clothier. A well-made piece will have some heft to it. Even a soft vintage cashmere will feel thicker than many modern versions.

Kristin Adair, curator of Love Stories Vintage, uses her fingertips to suss out whether a fabric is real silk on the spot. (She prefers the real thing for its durability and because it “feels so much better to wear than a synthetic.”)

Put the fabric on your palm and quickly rub your finger back and forth across it. “If it’s silk, it’ll get hot very quickly,” Adair says. With synthetics, you’ll feel the warmth of your hand but the fabric won’t actually heat up like silk will.

Bend the shoe

Rajni Rao, co-founder of Vintage Vintage Vintage and curator of Jungli Vintage, does a series of tests on vintage shoes to make sure they’re up to par. “There’s a lot of shoes that look like they’re in pristine condition, and then you look carefully and they’re dry rotting in the box,” she says.

Sniffing them will help — you want to avoid anything that smells like mushrooms or a basement — but there are other tests, too. While shoes shouldn’t fold in half, a healthy sole will be a little bendy. (One that is dry rotting, meanwhile, may crumble or crack.) “I always test the inside of the sole, make sure there’s no cracking or weirdness,” she says. Check to make sure the toe box isn’t peeling and that the heel is affixed tightly, too.

Be a tag sleuth

Clothing tags contain a trove of information. You can go as deep down this rabbit hole as you’d like. A logo’s layout, color or other features, for example, can tell you which era of a company something is from.

But for the research-averse, tags offer other clues. The first test is whether the item even has a physical tag. If the size and company are merely printed on the clothing, it’s likely a sign that something is newer.

“When you’re sourcing or thrifting, it’s really easy to cut through the BS if you just look for large, embroidered tags,” says Leila Gray, curator of Gray Goods. “A chunky tag, it’s like the true indicator” of value.

Carry a Tide pen …

Some stains are easy to remove, whereas others are tough projects or even permanent fixtures. The fabric also matters here.

“If you’re working with a hundred percent cotton you’re gonna have better luck than if you’re working with a cotton blend, but it is a little bit of a risk every time,” says Catherine Castillo, curator of Chronos Club. Silk is another notoriously tricky fabric for stain removal.

One way to hedge your bets is to keep a Tide pen or another portable stain remover with you, she advises. Try it in the store to see if the stain budges. If it doesn’t, it’s probably best to move on.

… and a lead swab test

Vintage glass and dining ware often comes from eras when they might have used materials we now consider toxic. For example, the uranium in uranium glass gives it that gorgeous color, but it also makes it inadvisable to use for drinking and eating. If glass glows under a black light, use it only as decoration.

Not everything will conveniently radiate danger. But you can carry instant lead swab tests (they look like Q-tips) while antiquing to help you figure out on the spot if the cool set of painted plates you found might leech lead into your dinner.

Examine the rim

If you spot something you’d like to drink out of, pay special attention to the lip. Rasmussen always runs her finger around the entire edge. “I’ll just go around and just make sure there aren’t any cracks or little nicks,” she says.

Cracks don’t have to be a deal-breaker, though. Rasmussen’s personal collection includes a few imperfect glasses. “I know exactly where the spots are,” she says. “I still drink out of them because I love them so much, and I can’t part with them.”

Enlist your freezer

To prevent a potential moth issue, Rao turns to an unlikely place: her kitchen. She tucks pieces made out of wool or other moth-attracting fabrics (especially if the item already has little moth holes) in a bag in the freezer for about 48 hours when she brings them home. The cold kills the moths and their eggs.

It’s a low-lift way to avert a much bigger problem down the line. “I’m going to assume that this is a possibility, and we’re just going to treat it accordingly,” Rao says.

Soak up the sun

Sunlight can be one of your best weapons against mildew and odors. Ramey sticks any stinky finds outside on a sunny day. (Check the weather to make sure there’s no rain in the forecast.) Another trick for particularly stubborn odors: Spray the item with a little vodka, which kills germs without damaging the fabric.

“Even if you have something that you’ve stored in your basement, you know, and it’s gotten a little musty, sunshine does a lot,” she says.

Be prepared to be patient. “It can take a year or more to thoroughly get odor” out, Ramey says. And resist the temptation to try to speed up the process by sending stinky finds to the dry cleaner. That “bakes that smell in,” she says. “You have to do a lot of your own leg work before you can actually take it to the dry cleaner.”

Accessories are your friend

It’s often difficult for larger folks to find vintage clothes in their size, because many of those garments haven’t survived to the modern day. While Vintage Vintage Vintage has its own plus-size section, Gray says there are other ways for people to bring pre-owned flair to their wardrobe, including accessories such as scarves, shawls and bags. “There’s more than just the clothing in the store that’s accessible to everybody,” says Gray, who focuses on size-inclusive vintage. She’s also always on the hunt for capelets, which are a one-size-fits-most item.

Know your appetite for a project

You have to know yourself a little bit to shop vintage — not just your tastes, but your appetite to put in work.

“Just think, do you want a project or do you just want to turn them over fast?” says Tara Papanicolas, curator of Los Gitanos Vintage. If you’re not interested in putting in the time or effort to rehab a piece, it’s best to inspect things carefully before you buy.

“Just look at the quality, the structure, the seams, the hardware. Just everything just to keep it pristine. Make sure it’s pristine,” Papanicolas adds.

Ramey agrees. “I think the average consumer just wants something that they can wear right away,” she says. “It’s like, you can get a good deal for something, but will you ever get around to doing the work?”