Thrifting Madness at Flamingo Plaza

I would like to preface this by telling you that I don't frequently go thrifting because it tends to overwhelm me.  I have plenty of friends who thrift all the time and find amazing things, and that rarely happens to me.  Maybe it's because I have gone on the wrong days, I hate crowds or I have no patience.

But today was different.  Today El Hombre and I made our annual pilgrimmage to Flamingo Plaza to find stuff for our Halloween costumes. El Hombre did find a pair of shoes and I found a potential shirt that I am going to attempt to alter down to my size.

But today Flamingo Plaza was a total treasure chest of finds.  I found two jackets (one of them is vintage Valentino, a salwar kameez, two frames, a hair fall and a jaipur beaded top - all for less than $100.

For those of you who aren't familiar, Flamingo Plaza is a collection of thrift stores in Hialeah.  I have two favorite stores - Red, White & Blue and Community Thrift.  They seem to have the best variety and as you are walking around you will see all sorts of people, including hipsters buying stuff to resell on ebay, etsy and trendy thrift stores.  After today I can totally understand why.  I am debating between tailoring my Valentino jacket down to my size (it's slightly big on me) or reselling it.  We will see...

Pics below (I should retake with my real camera and not my iPhone)

Thrifting in Hialeah

What could be a more interesting experience as a Gringa (who speaks very little Spanish) in Miami than an experience in Hialeah? Especially one that entails going to a collection of thrift shops on a weekend? Well, I did just that, with El Hombre in tow. We headed up to Flamingo Plaza, which is heralded as some of the best thrifting in Miami, to see what they had going on. We found gentlemen selling plants off the back of trucks, people in old cars with a PA System advertising pizza and lots and lots of shops with all sorts of things in them, including old stoves, bar chairs, wedding dresses, underwear and more. Many of the home furnishings, vhs tapes and board games reminded me of my childhood from the early 80s, like this:


Random things like this:

And who doesn't need a glass boot-shaped cup?


In addition, many of the clothes they had were your standard, basic pieces that people don't want, can't wear, etc, but then there were some truly glorious pieces:



(El Hombre was trying to decide which one would match his hat best)

I wish I could have grabbed pictures of the many late-80s wedding dresses with stains and huge bows, but I couldn't get around the crowds and I sort of felt bad. But I took advantage when I saw one in the window:


Outside of Red, White and Blue, which is by far the best and biggest shop, this guy was playing some tunes:

Kinda reminded me of Charleston.