We love the definitions of style so often tagged by newspaper 'Living' sections and downscale fashion mags: hippie chic, punk rock chic, urban chic, farm chic. It's all "chic" and, so we named this occasional look at different sorts of style. Today, thrift store "chic."

My sense of style, once I graduated from college and was unleashed from the need to follow my peers, has so often mirrored my bank balance. I've gone from boxy suits and flowery dresses found on sale at Laura Ashley and Ann Talbot (bank balance: medium low) to ultra-tight, tailored, beautifully drapey numbers from the Italian clearance racks at Neiman Marcus and Barney's (bank balance: medium high) to my current infatuation with holey lambswool sweaters, slinky urban tops, and endless eclectic jackets I find at the Goodwill outlet, garage sales, and thriftstores (bank balance: two kids, mortgage, still paying for those drapey Italian jackets, what do you think?).

However. I love the thrift store style and, much though I might long for just one trip through the July sales at Saks, the hunt is really what thrifty fashion is all about. "That's such a great pink suede jacket!" my friends say. I shrug, and tell them it comes from the bins, the local name for the Goodwill Outlet (at 59 cents a pound, a suede jacket is a spendy $1.50). I've found several great Paul Frank tees; some colorful fitted polos meant for teenagers; soft, sweet cabley wool sweaters; mind-blowingly colorful turtlenecks; flirty dresses; and voluminous skirts I take home and deconstruct.

Thrift store chic is more than just saving money, though, it's also freedom from the department store's decision about what sorts of clothes one should wear. There is no "Juniors" section, or "Savvy Woman" or "Urban Man." No. It's all just there, in heaps, piles, or rusted racks, for you to choose from. So I end up with Egyptian cotton buttondowns meant for a very small man, so buttery soft and perfect for a cool summer evening. In a Nike hooded sweatshirt meant for a large 12-year-old, I look hip, sexy, sporty as I push my boys in the jogger on a rainy afternoon. I cut up two huge men's shirts and made them into a blazer, a copy of one I found for $149 at a boutique. I snip the applique off a baby girl's shirt and apply it to the ankle of my Lucky jeans (found in a nearby bin). I make a flouncy skirt from a dozen garments, bedskirts, curtains.

Thrift store chic has its home in cities like Portland, where women declare loudly to one another over coffee or martinis, "I got it for $1.50 at a garage sale!" or, "I made it out of my brother-in-law's old pants! He was throwing them away." It belongs in New York, where fashion designers prowl the streets and budding artists and writers can't afford not to embrace it. It belongs in parts of San Francisco, where hipsters proudly tell the 70s provenance of their authentic rocker tees and plaid jackets. It belong behind coffee shop counters, on terrible-but-attractive off-off-off-Broadway actors, in the back rows of Math 121 at the local community college, behind the mic at the cool non-demoninational youth group held in an ill-used warehouse.

And on me, once-investment banker, now-writer, work-from-home mama. I am thrift-store chic.

What are you?