Somebody knows how to spot a bargain

Apologies for the second family-related post today, but I couldn't resist this three-year old blurb from a Delaware pub that features my mom, also a die-hard Quality Thrift shopper whenever given the opportunity. My sincere thanks to friend and lurker J for finding this gem:

Eek! Zoom! Nobody channeled Audrey Hepburn at the motorcycle-themed Born 2B Wild: A Black T-shirt Affair. Biker chic and biker chicks held sway at this scene, the annual benefit for DCCA. “What If the Hokey Pokey Is Really What It’s All About?” was the existential question on the T-shirt worn by Lora Englehart, publicist at Brandywine River Museum. Art-boosters Lynn and John Wigton arrived in gleaming Harley-Davidson gear, as did many others—an homage to Mike and Debbie Schwartz, owners of Mike’s Famous dealership, who were honorary co-chairs. “Like my necklace? I got it at the hardware store today,” Alice Hupfel of Chadds Ford ’fessed about her linkage. Anna Francis of Cochranville, Pennsylvania, polished off her tattooed torso with a rock-star wig. “Yeah, go ahead and feel it. You won’t be the first,” she quipped. We chatted up Gina Marsilii, whose new biz is permanent makeup, and her friend Andrea Derrick of Newark. Gina, always a live wire, outdid herself in dangling satellite earrings “that have their own weather system,” as she put it. (Gabby just loves it when someone else writes her fashion copy.) Certain biker dudes took a back seat to nobody, sartorially. Bill Shea, a past president of DCCA, nailed that “Leader of the Pack” look in gila monster boots from Arizona and a vintage leather jacket. Dentist Milton Isaacs of Arden, whose daughter Susan Isaacs is adjunct curator of DCCA, played against type in a “Rebel With a Cause” T-shirt. A certain ladylike contingent shunned roadster garb for the safe middle lane—Julie Von Blarcom, Danielle Rice and Jan Jessup, all in long black skirts. The sequined butterfly T-shirt that writer Frances Buttenheim said she bought for $1.99 at Quality Thrift in Claremont, California, showed somebody knows how to spot a bargain. The night’s apocryphal va-va-voom trophy went to blonde Pat Barron of Wilmington, a head-turner in black leather cap, electric blue shades, chain belts and skinny pants. When the band Go Van Gogh played “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction,” the song didn’t apply to anyone at Born 2B Wild.

I've actually always been fascinated by the "society pages" of newspapers large or small, haute or hoi polloi... I always scan those silly montages at the front of Philly Mag, Town & Country or in the Styles section of the NYT to see what wealthy and/or event-attending people that I don't know are wearing these days. And how many more dresses like that do they have at home? And what in God's name would I wear if I had to go to the Diabetes Fundraiser/Museum Gala/Masked Ball???  I know what my mom would wear: the sequined butterfly t-shirt! (BTW - she clearly should have won the "apocryphal va va voom trophy"for the evening described above....I want me some va-va-voom...)

Mom: please do a post for us about the butterfly t-shirt & and the TSE sweater as the bookends of the QT experience...