“Such a beautiful dress, where did you get that from?” Yes, a branded product can attract attention and arouse desires in others. But in this case you don’t have to be afraid that your neighbors will soon be running around in the same dress. And not because she finds shopping in posh areas like Munich’s Theatinerstrasse too expensive, but because she won’t be able to find a good piece there herself. Because it is an older model that the designer has replaced several times with new designs. The noble part comes from, one hardly dares to say it, from a farm flea market. Unfortunately, the previous owner outgrew it before she could run it too often. Lucky for the buyer. Because nobody can tell from the dress that it was bought used.
You can now start looking for such lucky breaks again. The flea market season has begun. On Saturday, May 14, for example, you can go to Martinsried with good shoes and walk from one garden to the other. Private individuals offer what they no longer need, from crockery to bed linen, from designer dresses to grandpa’s antique schoolbag. Such a tour is fun, not only because you can buy things for little money that others have only had in their cupboards for years, but also because you get an (imaginative) insight into the lives of so many people. How did they get that abysmally ugly wooden statue that’s on the table? You look at the sellers scrutinizingly. Could it be that you actually bought it once? Or is it a terrible gift that you want to get rid of in this way? Have these people actually slept in purple bedding with an oversized floral pattern?
But it also works the other way around: why on earth would these people want to part with that gorgeous, like-new milk frother that costs a fortune in the store for pocket money? Does anyone suffer from a lactose allergy? Don’t like cappuccino anymore? You can ask curious questions or just make sense of it – and strike quickly. A flea market day is definitely full of stories that nobody else would tell you.