The secret life of op-shops: What a cold Christmas taught my dad

Sunday, 25 January 2026

ESSAY: When Dad came to visit at Christmas, he wasn’t packing for 15-degree days in one of the country’s supposed sunspots.

So with fresh snow frosting the mountains, he shivered in the skinny layers of optimism he’d folded neatly into his suitcase.

My partner lent him a chunky tramping fleece, but it’s not really on-brand for a man I’ve never seen in a pair of jeans. So we suggested a quick tour of the town’s op-shops to find something snuggly but presentable.

“I’ve never been into an op-shop, and I’m not going to start in my 80s,” he declared. He couldn’t fathom how he’d ended up with two children who buy much of their wardrobe second-hand.

Chastened, we let the subject drop, and my partner abandoned any thought of using his fleece for the week.

But my brother-in-law wasn’t so easily dissuaded. They were heading to the hospice charity shop anyway in search of picnic plates for their road trip, so he riffled the men’s clothing racks for something smart enough to pass the Macdonald senior sniff test.

He picked out a V-neck grey sweater - simple, classic and in good nick. I wasn’t there for the presentation, so I don’t know if it came with protestations. But the next time I saw Dad he was toasty in his new-old cladding, seemingly unfazed by the erstwhile unthinkable notion of being an op-shop guy.

I never worked out whether the resistance was grounded in a sense of stigma from the days when op-shops were solely the preserve of the needy, or whether it really was about wearing someone else’s clothes.

It’s hard to have hang-ups about pre-worn clothes when you’re the youngest kid.

As the last of three girls, my early childhood was robed in hand-me-downs. Gingham dresses painstakingly smocked by my mother, before gathered tops became boho-chic. A velvet skirt and jerkin I wore to my first school disco (the moment, on seeing my friend wearing a belted T-shirt, that I realised I was deeply uncool).

And by the time I hit my teens, Glassons had all the bubblegum jeans and cropped fluoro tees a girl could need. So it wasn’t until we moved to England when I was 13 that I discovered op-shops.

I don’t remember my first charity shop buy, or any great revelatory moment. But over the five years that we lived in that small, moneyed London commuter town, I picked up long, breezy skirts and a silk shirt that carried me inter-railing around Europe. A sophisticated French Connection button-through dress that I wore to Leaver’s Day.

Gems I could neither have afforded new, nor had the patience to find, if I’d had to navigate the nightmare that is London’s Oxford St.

Because while I love clothes, I hate shopping. I have a two-hour window of enthusiasm before getting grumpy and restless. Shopping with friends is worse still - I really don’t care what you wear, or what you think of my unconventional outfits.

So op-shops offered a clothing taster - a mall worth of possibilities, condensed into a few racks, without the lurid food court.

Sure, the scent of a bargain is more alluring than the waft of fresh bread, or that sickly cookie dough aroma bakers shamelessly pump out onto the footpath.

But the joy of op-shopping goes beyond that. It’s the sense of discovery - an old-school lolly shop with its jars of long-forgotten sweets.

As a uni student in Dunedin, before Shein and Temu and everywhere fast-fashion, cheap meant Glassons. And that inevitably meant turning up to a 21st party to see someone else wearing the same dress.

Op-shops, on the other hand, offered cheap but different. An asymmetric-neck black and red jumper from a brand I’d never heard of, that I was still wearing at journo school years later.

A chance to buy something beautiful, enduring and unique, at an affordable price, with the virtuous side benefit of saving stuff from landfill, and donating to a worthy cause.

And it’s not just clothes. We’re living in a house largely furnished from the local dump shop - a legendary bargain barn that visitors make a special trip to see. It’s such a whirlwind of commerce, you can be contemplating a purchase, and circle back five minutes later to find it gone.

Almost everything we’ve needed in the 18 months we’ve been here, we’ve simply gone to the tip to find. The list now stretches to more than 20 items, from ski gear to a funky retro red vinyl chair to a bruised but perfectly functional $13, 4-slice toaster to replace the old one that blew up.

Stats NZ figures show Kiwis spent $232 million at antique and used good retailers in the year to September 2025.

Read the excitable babble about Gen Zers buying second-hand, and you’d think they’d invented the idea.

While trading used things has no doubt existed as long as we’ve been making or buying stuff, charities have been selling second-hand clothes and goods in New Zealand for almost a hundred years.

Opportunity shops were started by the Salvation Army in Britain in the late 1800s, when founder William Booth set up salvage brigades to round up unwanted items from the rich to give to the poor. According to Te Ara, they first popped up here in the late 1920s.

A July 1931 ad in the New Zealand Herald announced the launch of St Vincent de Paul’s first shop with the subheading “innovation in city”.

Modelled on successful shops in Australia and Wellington, it would be stocked by donations and staffed by volunteers, and would be “for the relief of cases of hardship”, the ad said.

The Red Cross traces its 50-plus national shops back to WWI depots, and warehouses of clothes donated for the needy.

Like that 1931 St Vincent de Paul store, most early charity shops were originally staffed by volunteers - often grannies in random rooms off churches. But now, many are professional operations, run by paid staff, who sadly know the difference between House of G and D&G. Some siphon off high-end goods to Trade Me or a “designer” rack, with price tags you’d expect in a vintage boutique not a charity shop.

That’s one of the big changes Rose Jackson has seen in the 35 years she’s been op-shopping.

Her first bargain buy as a teenager looking for cheap but unique, was a 1970s polyester photo-collage men’s shirt with a large, pointy collar, that she picked up for about $3 from an op-shop at Whangamatā.

That same shirt today - if you could find it at all - would probably have a $100 price ticket.

“You can find a few gems, but it’s definitely not like it used to be, because of online. Op-shops are smart now, they understand what they have. They quite often have a digital presence or put things up on Trade Me.”

The other big change, says the creator of secondhand retail guide Collectors Anonymous, is a culture shift. While Gen Zers certainly didn’t invent op-shopping, they have banished the stigma that may have fuelled my dad’s reticence, Jackson says.

“It really used to be ‘Euw, you’re wearing dead people’s clothes’. Or ‘Euw, it stinks’. It’s like a cultural movement now. You see these teenage boys looking for 90s streetwear shopping together, in a gang, on a Saturday. It’s so amazing. They would never have gone into op-shops five or 10 years ago.”

Although the odds of striking gold are slimmer than they used to be, Jackson perseveres. Mostly because she doesn’t want to buy into the polyester paradise of three-wears-and-done fashion.

“My primary motivation has always been, we don’t need more new things in the world. I worked in fashion in London in the early 2000s, and that was just a horrific onslaught of fast fashion.

“It’s having interesting things that nobody else has. And it’s that thrill of the hunt, and finding a piece of treasure.”

Like that festive red check tablecloth my father ate Christmas dinner off, that I may have neglected to tell him was $6 from the Sallies.