Photo by Ashley Wills
Each week, I'd like to focus attention on a single thrift store in the area as our feature thrift store of the week. For the first feature, I couldn't think of a more appropriate thrift store to cover than the very first thrift store I ever went to in Dallas, the Garland Road Thrift Store. Located right down the road from my apartment, this store has become the first place I check when I am in need of new thrift store gear. I wandered into this thrift store for the first time about a year ago, in search of formal gowns for a photo shoot I was going to be in. I was actually very pleasantly surprised at the large selection of formal and wedding wear that this store carries. On more than one occassion I have even found brand new prom dresses with the tags still in place! The prices for the dresses range anywhere from 10 to 40 or 50 dollars, depending on condition and year made. Wedding wear is a bit more pricy, but is generally in very good condition (see picture of wedding dress below, for example, they were selling it for a little over $100, but I thought it was gorgeous and completely worth it). One important tip...be sure to try the dresses on, as this store tends to sell what appear to be new dresses, but that have defective zippers! Of course, these could be easily replaced by a good tailor.
Garland Road Thrift Store also boasts a large and very well organized home and kitchen goods section, where you can actually find entire sets of dishes rather than just a straggling cup or saucer. The sorting team makes sure to carefully tape place settings together in clumps, so that pieces don't get lost under shuffling hands. The last time I was there I found a very cool set of yellow goblet glasses, 6 total, all for around 4 bucks. I was very tempted!
Garland Road Thrift Store is located at 10030 Garland Road, Dallas TX 75218, right next door to the CVS. You can reach them by phone at 214-324-1010. Though they don't have a formal website, reviews can be found by searching for them on Googlemaps.
PROS: great formal and wedding wear section, housewares and children's clothes
CONS: clothing can be very dated, esp. women's wear, extremely crowded, only 3 dressing rooms, long lines due to limited staff
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