Deals in New Brunswick

Though trendy Williamsburg is packed with secondhand stores and flea markets, the best vintage and used clothing deals in New York aren’t found in Brooklyn. The New Yorker in the know goes to the Upper East Side, where designer resale and consignment shops nestle among the expensive supermarkets and hair salons. Within a dozen blocks, the stores with the most experience and best reputation for selling high-end, barely used clothing vie to sell the so-last-season wardrobes of Park Avenue residents to their thriftier neighbors and other visitors. Here’s a run-down of five of the best such shops, featuring one item picked by the store’s owner or employee that they think is a perfect fit for this summer’s fashion. Designer Resale When I arrived at Designer Resale, president and founder Myrna Skoller was busy preparing for the store's annual sale, which started this Saturday and runs for two weeks. But she still found time to talk to me about her 24 years in the business. “People used to spend money more impulsively,” Skoller said. “Years ago, people wouldn’t want to be seen in the store; now people get excited about their buy.” Even Catherine Zeta-Jones, apparently, whom Skoller says has visited the store more than once. To keep with the times, you’ll find more Haute Hippie, Rag & Bone, and Theory bargains than other stores, at the best prices I’ve seen in my years of resale shopping. “Not everyone’s looking for a Chanel,” Skoller said sagely—but of course, she stocks that too. Skoller picked this Chloé maxi dress to reflect the craze for long, flowing dresses these last two summers—and because, marked down to $97.50, it’s an absolute steal. Keep an eye out for colored tags, which mean more discounts at the register. 324 East 81st St., between 1st and 2nd Aves. Matiell Designer and Consignment The new store in the neighborhood, Matiell moved from the East Village a few months ago to find a broader clientele. You won’t find Matiell on Google Maps just yet, making now the perfect time to find a selection that hasn’t been picked over. Owner Ewa Faris, herself wearing a classic yet trendy Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress that flowed to the floor, looked over her stock and picked a pale-blue Burberry drop-waist mini dress. “So young, and fresh—and look, the tag’s still on it!” she said, showing me the jaw-dropping original price of $1,495, now marked down to a doable $380. I can’t help but get excited with her, though the black Catherine Malandrino she passed up is more my thing. 163 East 87th St., between 3rd and Lexington Aves. Call 212-477-1123 for hours while they build their website. Encore Encore is the original game in town. Catering to the highest-end consigners and bargain shoppers, the store still takes Chanel as the gold standard, and I saw many dresses for more than a grand (or at that price, do they become gowns?). Upstairs, however, I was tempted by a striped butter-soft Michael Kors tee for a more modest $80. Erin Lee, the store manager, and Becky, who runs their extensive eBay online store, contemplated a blue Cavalli gown and a gold Alaïa before settling on this blue Oscar de la Renta dress, which Becky guessed was from his 2009 Resort collection (correct) and retailed originally for “about five grand” (unconfirmed, but not at all unthinkable). The dress’s simple shape hides that it’s made of ribbons of folded blue-and-white cloth sewn onto a netting-material slip. A closer look does indeed make the price tag of $308 seem like a real bargain. 1132 Madison Ave., between 84th and 85th Sts. A Second Chance Though it’s located on Lexington Avenue, A Second Chance, like Encore, is geared toward the Madison Avenue set. Their collection of designer handbags is impressive; Alexa Ridolfi, daughter of the owner, showed me a gray-and-tan Hermès Kelly Lakis bag (like the original Kelly bag, but with outside zippers), now discontinued and apparently hard to find, for $12,000. “Great colors, and it never goes out of style,” Ridolfi explained, though I’m at a loss when it comes to that price. But the perfect red Alaïa dress Ridolfi picked out, I understand. “Alaïa is flattering on every woman’s body,” she says, and the way it hangs beautifully all by itself makes me forget the $2,000 price tag attached to this work of art. 1109 Lexington Ave., between between 77nd and 78th Sts. Margoth A tiny storefront that can get lost amidst the other consignment shops on 81st Street, Margoth, owned and run by Margoth Arroyo, harbors gems. Arroyo’s taste skews vintage and bold in jewelry and handbags (I fell in love with a small purse shaped like an old rotary phone), but clean and modern in womenswear. After vacillating between a color-blocked Derek Lam silk shift ($450), and an Acne/Lanvin bright-white denim safari mini dress, Arroyo seemed most satisfied with her choice of a white silk Alexander Wang sleeveless drawstring dress for $385. “You can use it in so many different ways,” she said, pointing out the layers of silk and how the drawstring tightens a loop on the back of the dress, creating slightly different silhouettes. “And the fabric—!” 218 East 81st St., between 2nd and 3rd Aves. Call for hours at (212) 988-7688. Photos by Kasia Mychajlowycz.  Check Groupon for deals on shopping in New York City.

An Art-Packed Bike Trip to Long Island City | Kasia Mychajlowycz Follow our 50-minute itinerary to skyline views and Noguchi sculptures as you breeze from the UES to Queens. At FIKA, Chocolate is a Work of Art | Amy L. Hayden Take a peek inside the café's Tribeca factory, where Håkan Mårtensson creates chocolate sculptures inspired by toadstools and Star Wars. Cheap Eats Before a Free Concert in Prospect Park | Kasia Mychajlowycz From vegetarian Chinese food to fat, juicy cheeseburgers, the cuisine at these four restaurants is ideal for fueling up before a show. The Donut Pub: A New Fad at an Old New York Institution | Amy L. Hayden A peek inside a donut shop that's been serving ring-shaped pastry 24 hours a day, 7 days a week since the '60s. Tasting Menu: Porsena Chef Sara Jenkins Picks Her Favorite NYC Restaurants | Halley Lawrence She’s been called “one of the few chefs in America who understands Italy and how Italians eat.” So where does she dine when she’s not in the kitchen? The Other Madison Avenue: Five Vintage Finds on the Upper East Side | Kasia Mychajlowycz Tucked in among expensive salons and groceries, these resale and consignment shops offer the best designer-clothing deals in the city. Six Overlooked But Awesome Exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History | Mel Kassel You’ve seen the dinosaurs, but what about the dragons? Or the sapphire that was stolen in a 1960s jewel heist? An Art-Filled Beach Day at PS1's Rockaway! | Kasia Mychajlowycz From photography by Patti Smith to cheap beachside beer, here's what to look out for at PS1's latest offsite exhibit.

Rockaway! is a summer-long art exhibit celebrating the reopening of Fort Tilden, which was closed for two years after damage from Hurricane Sandy. Put on through a collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art’s contemporary museum, PS1, and local artist and community groups, the show’s big draw is a large exhibit by musician, writer, artist, and Rockaway resident Patti Smith. But there’s a lot more to explore there, especially when combined with a beach day. Follow our guide to navigating the historic site and the accompanying exhibit, whose works center around the connection between place, objects, and memory. The Chapel Walk into Fort Tilden, and the first exhibit area you’ll see is an old white building—the restored Fort Tilden chapel. Janet Cardiff’s The Forty Piece Motet takes over the bare and musty space with 40 speakers, each of which amplifies the voice of one singer performing their part of a complicated 16th-century choral piece. Walking among the speakers offers endless ways to hear the song; it felt personal and almost wrong to be walking among them, like sidling up to a chorister in the middle of a performance. The surround-sound effect feels even more intense when you look out the windows toward the peaceful beach. At the chapel, grab a brochure (with a handy map inside) and rely on volunteers to direct you to the other exhibits. Rockaway Artists Alliance Gallery A few hundred feet to the west, you can see what looks like an abandoned factory overgrown with scrubby trees. This houses the next exhibit, which you enter by going through the Rockaway Artists Alliance Gallery. The community nonprofit group’s gallery hosts Patti Smith’s photographs, which are a lifelong catalog of the objects and places dear to her: ex-lover and close friend Robert Mapplethorpe’s grave, Frida Kahlo’s corset, her own work boots. The photos are all shot on film in black and white, adding a layer of ghostliness to the surviving objects of dead people. Smith isn’t the best photographer, but it’s interesting to see a curated selection of a woman who seems to have traveled everywhere. Try to nab one of the scarce gallery guides at the front desk because, like the entire Rockaway! exhibit, signage is rare here but would be useful. (Skip the attached exhibit honoring Walt Whitman, which is stingy: a few unexplained relics in a display box, a dozen tattered copies of his books, a forgettable movie. You probably remember more about him from high school than you’ll learn here.) The Resilience of the Dreamer Across a small garden path is an old auto garage housing Smith’s installation, The Resilience of the Dreamer. A gilded four-poster bed, draped with white linens hanging from the high ceilings and lit by punched-out skylights, looks like a dream or a ghost. It's also a reminder that, despite its upbeat exclamation point, all of Rockaway! sprang from the traumas of Hurricane Sandy. Smith based Resilience on beds she saw washed ashore after the disaster. Around Fort Tilden Sprinkled throughout the grounds, a careful eye will catch a few of the little birds’ nests created by Adrián Villar Rojas. The low, slouching bowls are very difficult to find, looking for all the world like real nests—a small offering of home for a community where many were left homeless just two years ago. Granite blocks Smith inscribed with fragments of poems by Whitman stand along the shore road of Fort Tilden, almost at the western edge and close to the beach. We recommend taking a break in the sand before heading back to the bus stop and jumping on the Q22 bus, which will drop you off two blocks from the Rockaway Beach Surf Club. Rockaway Beach Surf Club The exhibit at the surf club features artwork by locals and notable artists, though no piece really stands out on its own. Granted, the large shack that makes up the surf club seems dim compared to the distracting, sun-drenched patio right outside. Grab a drink (cans of PBR are $3, a dark and stormy is $9) and take note of a few pieces of art before you run outside: Above the ATM is Camille Henrot’s Tropics of Love, a grid of nine tawdry and tender portraits of half-animals, half-humans coupled up. To the right of the bathrooms is Allyson Vieira’s Aphrodite I, a delicate ink drawing of an octopus that shows the artist’s very light and precise hand. Tom Sachs’s Tides at Rockaway Beach is the largest piece on the wall to the left as you walk in. At first, Sachs’s work looks like a schedule of upcoming tides, but looking more closely, it’s clear this is actually a schedule of deaths, listing men’s and women’s life expectancy against their age today. In short, Sachs’s work tells you how much longer you’re statistically likely to live. The subject matter is creepy, even though its handmade, graffiti-esque aesthetic fits right in with this local bar. Now, step out into the sun. Out back, surfers stash their boards in lockers, locals talk shop in flip-flops, and pilgrims from Manhattan let loose. A new Southern-style food truck sells meaty sandwiches (with one vegan option) and killer sweet-potato fries. Enjoy this last phase of your visit to the Rockaways—from there, it’s a half-block walk to the subway and back to reality. Rockaway! at a Glance When to go: Open and free to the public Thursday–Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. until September 1. The Rockaway Beach Surf Club exhibit is also open to the public free of charge Monday–Friday from noon to midnight and Saturday–Sunday from 11 a.m. to midnight. The Forty Piece Motet by Janet Cardiff will only be open through Sunday, August 17. How to get there: Take the 5 or 2 to the last stop in Brooklyn, Flatbush Ave./ Brooklyn College, and walk a block to the intersection of Flatbush Avenue and Avenue H, in front of Target. From there, catch the Q35 bus toward the Rockaways, getting off at the first stop after crossing the Marine Parkway Bridge. What to bring: At Fort Tilden, water and food are scarce but surf and sand are plenty, so pack a towel, swimsuit, sunblock, water, and snacks. Photos by Kasia Mychajlowycz.