Score Cheap Threads at This Dry Cleaners

Park Slope's newest hotspot for scoring cool, pre-owned fashions isn't a sleek new vintage store. It's the dry cleaners.

Slopers strolling by Fifth Avenue's Yes Cleaners on the right day might be lucky enough to scoop up a slinky Betsy Johnson dress or Brooks Brothers shirt for under $20.

Such steals can sometimes be found on a metal rack parked outside the dry cleaning store on Fifth between Union and President streets. The store frequently sells forgotten, spic and span clothes — sometimes designer brands — at fire sale prices. The shop’s owner, Kevin Chen, came up with the inventive solution in order to get rid of the abundance of abandoned slacks, shirts, sweaters, dresses, and coats that tend to stack up at the shop.

It's a win-win: Chen rids himself of the abandoned goods, and Slope residents score yet another spot to scoop up cheap, used threads.

Since the recession hit, Chen said that more and more clients have abandoned pieces of clothing at the shop. After dropping off their dirty or damaged clothes, customers realize they don’t have the money on hand to pay for the service. Many dry cleaners do not require customers to pre-pay for their garments and many also take only cash. So, for the last two years, Yes Cleaners has sold garments that were dropped off and never claimed.

The clothing up for grabs at Yes Cleaners typically costs anywhere from $5 up to $20 based on the quality of the fabric, the construction of the garment and whether or not it is a designer brand. Mandy Ho, who mans the counter at the store’s Fifth Avenue location, hangs handwritten cardboard signs on the rack indicating the price of each piece before she wheels the rack outside the store. Chen, who is from Hong Kong, also owns a dry cleaning and tailoring shop in Carroll Gardens and two dry cleaning businesses in Fort Greene. 

“We sell a lot of clothes, and quickly because of the price,” said Ho. “It’s very cheap.”

Eager locals will swing by the store as soon as they see the rack parked outside, she said. Customers can try on the bargain fashions inside the shop and check themselves out in the store’s full length mirror before deciding whether or to purchase an item.

The shop last sold a crop of abandoned clothes late last year, just before the holidays. Ho said that several locals who came by the store to peruse the rack were on the lookout for inexpensive, but well-made clothing to give to friends or family as holiday gifts.

Ho sold a full-length black winter peat coat to one Park Slope local for $20, and a soft red turtleneck sweater to another for $5. Chen brought her about 50 articles of clothing to sell last year; 20 of the pieces were gone in just one day, Ho said.

The harsh winter that’s hit the northeast this year has kept Yes Cleaners from selling another batch of clothing so far in 2011. Chen and Ho don’t want to monopolize the heavily-trafficked sidewalk on Fifth Avenue, which is already narrowed from snow piles and patches of ice. They also don’t want the clothes to get wet or dirty from snow kicked up by passersby.

“Right now it’s just too cold to put stuff outside to sell,” said Ho.

The store is planning to sell another crop of unclaimed clothes in the spring, said Ho, once it’s clear the worst of the winter storms has passed.