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A trying-on experience

We wondered, could we put together three outfits of strictly designer clothes from bay area consignment shops?

What fashionista would have thought the day would come when an Armani jacket would cost less than a tank of gas?

That day was March 26, 2005. A full tank of regular unleaded for a four-door Mazda Protege cost $23.65.

The Armani was $17.50 on a sale rack at a Tampa clothing consignment store.

It was a landmark moment for a fashion lover: A luxury was more affordable than a necessity.

We discovered the bargain Armani while conducting important fashion field research. Is it possible, we wondered, to find great deals on designer fashions in bay area consignment shops?

It's a pressing question. The big news in fashion this spring is that the prices of European designer goods, which at their lowest can cost more than a month's mortgage, are rising noticeably because of the weakening dollar. Those lines include Armani, Chanel, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Versace.

With that in mind, we set out to put together three outfits of high-end designer clothing for $100-$200 each (the cost of one overpriced Banana Republic dress).

In compiling a list of consignment stores to check out, we consulted stylish friends, and stylish friends of stylish friends. Their responses usually began with "There's a great store in Miami-New York-Los Angeles . . ." And faded into "But around here . . . Well . . . Have you thought about looking on the Internet?"

And sure enough, you can forget about finding a cheap Chanel suit anywhere near here. But you can still find good stuff.

Of course, consignment store trolling is as much about the thrill of the hunt as actually finding something. It's about wandering from store to store to search through the racks, hoping that maybe this time a Chanel suit will be shoved between a Gap polo dress and a Kasper ASL suit with shoulder pads on steroids. And when that doesn't pan out, it's about grabbing a Prada vest you don't need, but hey, it's Prada.

It's a once-in-a-lifetime fashionista thrill.

Because more than random thrills were needed for this adventure, some ground rules were established:

Each of the three outfits had to have a specific purpose: work, casual and night out.

Because it would have been pointless to throw together the outfits paying no attention to size, fit or, therefore, usefulness, they had to fit a real person. Our lab rat was a woman 6 feet tall, about 135 pounds, whose clothing size can be small, medium or large, or size 4 to 10, depending on the make.

Each outfit was started with a "thrill" buy: the first thing that looked good and fit well. The rest of it was put together based on that.

In 21/2 weeks, we visited 12 stores (some more than once, and one of them a thrift istore with a reputation for having the clothes we wanted) in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Belleair Bluffs.

If our goal had been to scour consignment stores for clothes from Target, life would have been very good. But after two stores, the only thing even remotely encouraging for this mission was a pair of $65 scuffed gold Tod's loafers (size 9), which would retail starting at around $300.

So, it was on to store No. 3 with the hope that its name, Designers' Consigner, wasn't a violation of truth in advertising.

It wasn't. The St. Petersburg store produced one of the best collections of high-end designer clothing we found. The collection wasn't extensive, but it had the juice required: a few Chanel pieces, including blouses and a sweater set (but no suit); a pair of black wool Marc Jacobs pants; Burberry tops; a Carolina Herrera dress (though it was a disappointingly green shapeless thing); Versace; and a pair of Louis Vuitton shoes with the once-very-hot Murakami LV logo print for $249.

Unfortunately, nothing worked out. The problem was either fit, look or price.

Designers' Consigner also had the flat soda version of designer clothing: a rack of St. John Knits, a utilitarian, midrange expensive, not exactly scintillating line of knits that is popular with the ladies who lunch.

St. John Knits is quite popular around here. Not that there's anything wrong with that, we were forced to admit later on in our search.

Another rack at Designers' Consigner was filled with clothes from Peggy Jennings, the St. Petersburg designer who created some of first lady Laura Bush's inaugural outfits this year. That rack produced the first promising pieces in our search, and it ended up producing the first purchase: a jacket with a body of alternating black velvet and lemon yellow silk stripes, black velvet sleeves, and yellow silk French cuffs. It could work for evening or work (depending on the job).

The jacket was consigned from Jennings' area showroom. The original price was $2,450. It was cut to $600 after a model wore it in a show. By the time it hit Designers' Consigner, it was $69.

St. John Knits had a significant presence in the next round of stores. We found several interesting items - a Michael Kors light brown camel hair sleeveless dress and jacket for $55 (the jacket had a small black stain on the front); Prada shoes with a Saks Fifth Avenue price tag of $350 selling for $99; a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes for $149 - but nothing clicked.

The next store more than made up for that.

Deja Vu Boutique in North Tampa produced the Armani goodie, a wool jacket with chocolate brown, cream, turquoise and light yellow interwoven stripes that became the first piece of the work outfit.

This store was almost like an Armani breeding farm. It had a significant selection of jackets and pant and skirt suits (and at least one three-piece suit), most in size small or extra small. It also came close to producing other experiences that were Holy Grailish.

On a rack of evening clothes was a dress from Badgley Mischka, the design duo responsible for glamorous, body-hugging, bling-infused outfits loved by celebrities. This dress was black, 94 percent stretch viscose, hitting at midcalf, with a beaded mesh cutout in the chest area. It was $100-plus. It was size 6, but it hugged our model's body just a little too tightly to work.

The pain was sharp for that miss.

Also a near-miss on fit, but not as painful, was a dress from another lover of tight fits, Thierry Mugler: a sleeveless citron piece with corsetlike ties at the front, size medium, $39.99.

One more thing did work out: a pair of well-fitting Roberto Cavalli jeanlike pants, in a pink reptile-skin design with gold threading, size large, for $29.99.

A little something casual.

That purchase became the first deviation from our intent to get only one piece from each store so the view of what was available would be wide-ranging. But cold reality was setting in: the range really isn't that wide.

The next store visit turned up a rack of Jennings clothes, but not much more (the 100 percent polyester, machine washable blouse with a Diane von Furstenberg label didn't count).

Next we happened upon Diva D'zines, which turned out to be another of the best finds of the expedition.

Diva D'zines had items from well-known designers (Prada, Vera Wang) and hip, hot, celebrity-loved ones (Trina Turk, Cynthia Steffe).

A Prada vest in chocolate brown denim would have been a good fit with the Cavalli pants, but it wasn't screaming "Buy me." We could have moved on without picking up anything, but with a deadline approaching, the search was at the desperation stage.

Time, options and optimism for meeting the original intent were running out, so the first compromise was made. If big, expensive designers weren't going to work out, hip-hot would be substituted. A pair of Trina Turk black bootcut pants, size 8 and fitting a little loosely, were taken for about $30 to go with the Jennings jacket and finish the evening outfit.

Three stores right after that produced little besides some Dolce & Gabbana jeans and a blah Burberry blouse.

Dream time was over. It was time to deal strictly with reality.

Three stores got repeat visits to finish the outfits.

One was a store that had had a rack of Jennings clothes with skirts for $15. Something from that would have worked somehow, but the rack was now gone. So it was back to Designers' Consigner. After striking out on a pair of Ralph Lauren pants (the expensive Lauren) and an Armani skirt and blouse combination (the skirt had a big snag on the left side), we swallowed our pride. We took a yellow St. John Knits skirt on its third markdown, $41.09 with tax (the skirts can start at $300 retail).

That left finishing off the casual combo. It was back to Diva D'zines for the Prada vest ($85).

The roundup of what we ended up with:

For work: Armani jacket and St. John Knits skirt. Total cost: about $60 with tax.

Casual: Roberto Cavalli pants and Prada vest. Cost: about $115.

Evening: Peggy Jennings jacket and Trina Turk pants. Cost: about $100.

P.S. After more deliberations, it was decided that the work outfit needed one more piece, a top for the work outfit. And it was needed fast.

So we went back to Deja Vu and picked up a three-piece Armani suit - lightweight jacket, vest and pants in chocolate brown - on the sale rack for $15. Either the vest or jacket can work for the work outfit.

Maybe with more time and resolve, our original goal could have been fulfilled. And maybe with a bigger budget added to that, we could have included shoes, purses and accessories.

More likely, maybe not.

But for this experience, we'll always have Armani.

- Sharon Fink can be reached at 727 893-8525 or fink@sptimes.com

Here are the stores where we shopped for this story, and the best find at each that generally suited our criteria.

11727 N Armenia Ave., Tampa

(813) 935-4508

Best find: Burberry blouse

1224 S Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa

(813) 254-1224

Best finds: Balmain purse, Emanuel Ungaro gauzy purple dress.

1033 Central Ave., St. Petersburg

(727) 894-3326

Best finds: Peggy Jennings, couple pieces of Chanel, one pair Louis Vuitton Murakami logo shoes, Marc Jacobs pants, Carolina Herrera dress, one pair Chanel shoes, Burberry tops.

7038 Central Ave., St. Petersburg

(727) 345-1400

Best finds: Prada shoes, Jimmy Choo shoes, Gucci black pants, Carmen Marc Valvo beaded evening dress with jacket, Sonia Rykiel pantsuit.

703 Franklin St., Clearwater

(727) 447-6969

Best finds: Prada vest, Vera Wang dress, Gucci shoes, Prada shoes, pieces by Trina Turk and Cynthia Steffe.

3533 49th St. N, St. Petersburg

(727) 527-4483

Best finds: Peggy Jennings rack, Richard Tyler jacket.

268 Indian Rocks Road N, Belleair Bluffs

(727) 584-9222

Best finds: Emanuel Ungaro Emanuel line vests

8346 N Armenia Ave., Tampa

(813) 932-4783

Best finds: Dolce & Gabbana and Versace jeans

4912 S Lois Ave., Tampa

(813) 805-0200

Best finds: Michael Kors dress and jacket, Carmen Marc Valvo bustier top.

1530 McMullen Booth Road, Clearwater

(727) 797-3890

Best find: Selection of Peggy Jennings.

4007 S MacDill Ave., Tampa

(813) 839-0838

Best find: Pair of Tod's loafers.

* Remain calm. Balance your burning desire for something with thoughts of spur-of-the-moment ideas that didn't turn out well, say, Britney Spears' first marriage.

* Always examine a garment closely. Look for stains, snags, rips, holes. Decide if you can live with the imperfection or are willing to pay more in an attempt to have it fixed. And consider that it might not be fixable.

* Always try on an item. Know what kind of fit you can live with: a little tight, a little loose, a little pinchy. If you wear a size 61/2 shoe, is it worth the money to get those 81/2 Jimmy Choos and have to stuff paper in the toes?

* Be skeptical. Some stores will have designer knockoffs. Some will mark them as such in some way if they can ID them as such. Others won't, or won't be able to know they are knockoffs.

* Tap your fashion knowledge to decide what price works for you for a particular piece and what you think is too much.

- SHARON FINK, Times staff writer