... And back to the cold streets of New York City!
My trip to Panama City has been short but really energetic. 5 days of doing nothing, wandering around and going to the beach is quite nice.
Panama City is a quite lonely place on winter for the fact that is a 100% spring break destination. For this reason everything was very quite, and closed and a little decadent, the same way
Coney Island becomes on winter.

As Odilean from
Stylophile put it in her comment to my latest post,
"i found the best stuff at a thrift store in Florida", I did so too when I used to go to Miami, being Florida a retirement destination
par excellance, which means old people who doesn't need their winter clothing anymore and dropping really old and cool stuff to the thrift stores. For this reason I was very excited the day I went thrifting with my hubby to Panama City.
The sad truth is though that it was a total disappointment when we visited the two biggest thrift stores in the area and realized everything left was just junk, disposable clothing from nowadays, things people don't want that they bought just yesterday, nothing "vintage" or relatively old. Sure the places were huge and full of thibgs but we couldn't find even one thing to bring home with us.

This made us think that the years of thrifting are really going to an end because the closest we get to our time, the shitty the clothing, the most casual and sport, very few exciting items to die for.
In my way back to NY i bought the last issue of
i-D magazine to read in the airplane and in an interview to
Chloë Sevigny I couldn't be more surprised when one of the questions regarded thrifting and her answer was so close to our thoughts while in Florida...
Q: But nowadays you can't shopt thrift because all that's left is all the disposable stuff. It's hard to find the great 40's or 50's pieces at those thrift stores.
A: That's where a lot of the great individual style came from. I think it's a generational thing about how Americans shop. Thrift stores aren't going to have that cool well-made stuff that we found as kids anymore. [...]
spring break paraphernalia stores in Panama City, FL
Panama City is, as I mentioned earlier, a spring break destination so all i could find were spring break stores... with names such Purple Haze, Wizards, Heat Wave, Ron Jon... this kind of stores have all kind of "beach crap" on sale, from bikinis to Hawaiian hula skirts (Hawaii is a big thing in this area,
Tikis are everywhere), sandals, sun lotions, shells, coconut figures, beads, dolphin shaped beaded chimes...
I thought though these stores would be more fun to be in than they actually are so all I ended up buying was a princess crown that reminded me the movie I saw the night before,
From The Terrace, where Joan Woodward wore a very similar crown herself...
my only purchase, a crown
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Y ya estoy de vuelta!
Mi viaje a Panama City, en Florida, ha sido corto pero he regargado pilas de lo lindo. 5 días haciendo nada mas que ir a la playa y dar vueltas por ahí, oye, se agradece!. :)
Panama City es un pueblo de veraneo, donde los estudiantes universitarios pasan lo que en inglés se llama "Spring Break", que no es otra cosa que soltarse la melena antes de empezar la vida "adulta"... imaginaos ordas de gente toda borrachisima, quemadisima por el sol y llendose de fiesta 24 horas al dia... Panama City esta ideado especificamente para ellos asi que en invierno no hay absolutamente nada, es como ir a la Costa del Sol en pleno invierno: bien poquito y mucha tranquilidad.
Aunque por esta misma razón es un sitio bastante peculiar de ir en fechas como esta.
El día que nos fuimos a ver tiendas de segunda mano fue una gran decepción.
Al igual que Odilean de Stylophile, la cual me escribió en el ultimo post que hice, "i found the best stuff at a thrift store in Florida" (la mejor ropa la he encontrado en tiendas de segunda mano en Florida), años atras encontré los mejores chollazos en cuanto a vintage se refiere cuando fuí de vacaciones a Miami, porque Florida es el destino par excellance de los jubilados aqui en America asi que las posibilidades de encontrar ropa antigua con rollo es bastante alta... o era!.
Para nuestra decepción lo unico que encontramos fue ropa actual que sus dueños no querian, basura basicamente, nada interesante, un panorama de lo más desolador.
Ir de tiendas vintage no es lo que era, aunque suene estúpido, por el simple motivo que cada vez nos acercamos más a épocas en las que lo que impera es la ropa sport y ya no hay ropa de calidad, se sabe que la ropa pasara de moda y por lo tanto la calidad de esta hace que dichas prendas no superen el año sin estar todas echas una ruina.
Lo mas gracioso es que al venirme a NY me compré la revista i-D donde, en una entrevista a Chloë Sevigny, esta se quejaba de exactamente lo mismo... P: But nowadays you can't shopt thrift because all that's left is all the disposable stuff. It's hard to find the great 40's or 50's pieces at those thrift stores.
R: That's where a lot of the great individual style came from. I think it's a generational thing about how Americans shop. Thrift stores aren't going to have that cool well-made stuff that we found as kids anymore. [...]
Como ya dije anteriormente Panama City es una ciudad de veraneo especialmente dedicada a los "spring breakers" por lo que todo lo que se puede encontrar allí son mega tiendas con nombres de los más "hippy" como Purple Haze, Heat Wave, Wizards... estan bien surtidas de todo aquello que se pueda utilizar para ir a la playa o ir de fiesta: bikinis, faldas hawaianas (el rollo Hawaii se lleva mucho por aquí, puedes encontrar Tikis por todas partes!), sandalias, cremas para el sol, collares y todo tipo de parafernalia sexual... de todas formas suena más interesante de lo que realmente es, pensé que entrar en una de ellas sería una explosión de color, y lo es, pero hay cierto matiz decadente, no se... asi que acabé comprándome solo una corona de princesa que me recordó a la pelicula que habia visto la noche anterior, Desde la Terraza, con Paul Newman y Joan Woodward, la cual llevaba una corona bien parecida a la que yo me compré...
