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A visit to Humana


This week I visited the Humana second hand shop on Szent István boulevard, between Jászai Mari square and Nyugati railway station. I’ve heard a lot about this one, so I decided to give it a go. You can spot it from quite the distance, thanks to its yellow signs. The shop window gave a promising look, so I’ve entered with high hopes and immediate disappointment followed. The shop itself is tiny, but it houses lots of clothes, thus resulting in crowdedness. This is also amplified by the constant sales (e.g.: everything for 300-400 Forints – 1,3-1,8 USD), which attract a lot of people. I couldn’t really get close to the clothes, but to be honest, they didn’t need a hands-on approach.




The slogan of the shop could be “Welcome back to the 70’s!”, I think this tells you everything about their stock. The second hand has a small man and child section, some accessories and a couple (literally two or three) pairs of shoes, nicely separated from the female items. The garments are sorted by type, but other than that, they hang chaotically on the racks, I couldn’t find any type of color or size order.
The shop has three changing rooms for the dozens of people visiting it at any given time, thus forcing you into queuing.  I didn’t have the nerve to wait, but from the looks of it, the dressing rooms were ridiculously small. If you don’t want to try everything on, you’re in luck, since most of the clothes are average sized (38-40), you can probably pick up a nice sweater without too much of a hassle. If you’re seriously looking for everyday wear don’t bother going up the stairs, but if you want to liven up your collection, definitely check out the top floor. You can find the strangest pieces here, great for giving yourself a unique look, or dressing up in a costume.


Overall I think this is a cheap and unique shop, if you want something special (even if you don’t know what it is) and don’t mind the crowd, do pay a visit.

Humana second hand shop
Location: V. Szent István boulevard 9.
Open: M-F: 9:30-20:00, Sat: 9:00-15:00

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Male edition



If you’ve been reading this blog for some time, or wandering around town looking for second hands, you might encountered a problem. Shopping in these stores is considered a „female hobby”, which is quite weird, since men can also be seen here. Most stores don’t really cater to men’s needs, usually there’s only two or three racks of clothes for them, while the other 80% of the store focuses on women’s clothing. There’s certainly no men only second hand shop, nor one that focuses on males.  Occasionally, you can see a couple of shirts or old jackets, but nothing extraordinary. The only store I know of is a strictly online one which only sells shirts. 

 Asking my friends, I realized that men do need these shops. An interesting case that kept coming up is an internship or a trainee program, when guys need a business suit, or at least a handful of good shirts. The cheapest suits cost 20 000 HUF (88 USD), which is pretty harsh for someone who has a (barely) paid internship. Matter of fact is you can pretty much tell a suit was cheap at first glance, so guys tend to buy the expensive ones. Good shirts also cost 5-6000 HUF (22-26 USD), and you will need at least 5 of them for a week.

So, most guys seriously think about visiting a second hand now or than, but where should they start?
My opinion is, go to the  Giga Turi on Váci Street (details in my very first post), they pretty much offer the widest range of men’s clothing, occupying the second floor of the three. The prices are a bit higher than usual, but you will definitely find what you need. For suits you can visit Renoválás (please see one of my previous posts). When I was there, they had a sale on suit-trousers, costing 200 HUF (1 USD). I also strongly recommend Second Chance, where you can pick up casual clothing, for example Levi’s 501 jeans, for 2000-3500 HUF (9-15 USD) depending on their condition. 


In the Renoválás shop, I’ve managed to find a complete suit (trousers and jacket), in mint condition for 3000 HUF (13 USD). Sadly, it was too small for my model, but I took a picture so you can see the quality of this non-labeled, second hand suit.



A male friend of mine (a regular at these places) accompanied me and had this to say:
“I think a second hand is a great place for youngsters. Why? You can buy cheap, trendy and in most cases designer-labeled clothing. I’ve bought my Zara jeans and shirt here (Renoválás), for 2000 HUF (9 USD). Friends showed me Hugo Boss suits, LaCoste shirts, Armani T-shirts bought dirt cheap, and you couldn’t really tell they were from another owner. I think less people should know about these shops, so I can pick out the good deals first :-D”.


Giga Turi
Location: Váci Street 78-80.
Open: M-F: 09:00-19:00, Sat: 10:00-18:00
 
Renoválás
Location: 1073, Erzsébet Boulevard 8
Open: M-F: 11:00-19:30, Sat: 10:00-18:00
 
Second Chance
Location: 1061. Király Street 28
Open: M-Sat: 10:00-20:00. Sun: 12:00-18:00
 


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Shopline

If you have already visited many of the city's second hand shops and you decided what your favorite ones are, you have a chance to make your shopping easier and faster. There are lot of stores, which offer online shopping, in case you know what kind of clothes you would like to buy, but you do not have enough time or you are not in the mood to go out and travel around the city. Because this blog is mainly made for foreign people, in this post I try to explain how to use Hungarian second hand stores' websites.


yorkmode.hu
This online shop deals with clothes for women, men and children as well. If you look at the left side of it, you can see the label Webáruház (Online Shop). Under this are the genders: női ruhák means women's clothes, gyermek ruhák means clothes for children, and férfi ruhák is men's clothes in Hungarian. Than you click for example on the label for women's clothes and than you can see a variety of clothes. As the layout is different from site to site, I suggest to just go through the labels and see the pictures of clothes so you can find out which is which. I clicked on női rövidnadrágok, which is shorts for women and a lot of pictures of shorts just popped up. If you click on the picture, a new site comes up. There you can see your item's picture on the left, and it's description on the right. Szín is the color, nem means the gender, and méret is the size of the shorts.Under it you can see it's lenght and width in centimetres. You can also check its price; unfortunately it is in HUF. However, Google solves your problem quickly, you just have to type for example 2000 HUF in USD and you can see that it costs 9 US dollars. If you are satisfied with everything regarding your chosen item you can click on kosárba, which means into the cart. Than the page will show you an arrow to the left with a vásárlás folytatása. This means that you can go back and pick other clothes. If you click to the right arrow, which says a vásárlás befejezése than you will finish your shopping. On the upper side you can see the total price of the clothes. First, you have to choose the method of delivery. You can pick it up in the shop, or ask for delivery to your home; pre-paid or cash. Your last thing to do is fill in the gaps with your personal data: first name, last name, phone number, city, street&number of your house. You only have to write in the boxes signed with a star. Than you click on vásárlás befejezése again and this is it.



gyerektrend.hu
This is an onlie shop only for children. I think this is a quite good one, because you can choose by sizes. The only problem is that these sizes are in the European system, but I found a chart in which there are the Europan sizes in the UK and US system. If  you found the best for the appropriate child, then the process is the same that I have written before.The only difference is that you can find the labels under termékeink, which is our products on the left side. Also, on this site, you can only have the clothes delivered, so you have to decide how you will pre-pay: you can transfer money from your credit card, send it by cheque, or pay with PayPal.


Here are some other links to Hungarian online second hands:


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Renoválás

Between the Blaha Lujza Square and the Wesselényi Street hidden in the basement of a building we can find this tiny, communist-like shop. Its design is quite harsh, with its lamps looking like an eighties era elemantary school's ones and the plain walls. It is clear that they put the focus rather on the clothes, and not at all on the design of the shop.To be honest, I would expected more effort to create a store that has a nice atmosphere.


The reason of my first disappointment was that I heard a lot of good things about this shop and I went there with great expectations. In fact, if I see the abilities of the shop and compare them to the others, it is a good type of second hands with a large quantity and variety of clothes, on very low prices. The pieces were seperated by genders and types of clothes, so you have to use your treasure hunting abilities, especially in the case of the ones in piles. Although, after a little effort you can find trendy and branded pieces on ridiculously low prices. For example, Mexx top for 900 HUF (4 USD), Marks&Spencer vest for 1400 HUF ( 6 USD), or skirts for 500 HUF ( 2 USD).  The ones in the piles are for 200-500 HUF (1-2 USD). Plus point is that you can find an entire department for children clothes and a huge circlehanger of suit-trousers by the price of 200 HUF (1 USD)!


The changing rooms were a bit "cheap", the curtains were quite transparent, and there were no hangers so I had to put all of the clothes on a little chair. All in all, the atmosphere was a bit strange and controversial, partly because of the 90's music and the assistants who were at ease. But, of course, if you are really looking for good and cheap clothes, these factors do not really matter. The more important thing is that I found some really good and trendy pieces and there are various types for every age.

 
Dress: Rage, one size, 900 HUF ( 4 USD)

Renoválás
Location: 1073, Erzsébet Boulevard 8
Open: M-F: 11:00-19:30, Sat: 10:00-18:00

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