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RICHARD BORGE

By Christopher Palmeri

Downturn Chic

The term “recessionista” is everywhere, from Glamour magazine to the Irish Times, which recently used the word to describe a “modern sort of girl who is trying to survive the credit crunch the best she can.” Despite the nod to “fashion­ista,” the word had a ­different meaning when it surfaced for a while in 2001. Then, it meant someone who enjoyed predicting economic doom—“like the people who hope for a nor’easter to wash ashore, just to see what kind of havoc gets wreaked,” wrote The New York Observer at the time. Today’s recessionistas haunt thrift shops, fueling year-to-date sales growth of 6% to 15% at Salvation Army and Goodwill outlets. Goodwill’s San Francisco-area outlets will launch a blog for recessionistas in November.

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