Ann Arbor’s ‘Salvation Armani’ thrift store known for its luxury finds, quirky treasures

At the world's best thrift store Monday, Kolby Miller decided not to buy a pogo stick.

He's usually interested in Polo, not pogo. The massive Salvation Army resale shop in Ann Arbor has been a reliable place to find name brand golf shirts, suitable for his job in tech sales.

"Salvation Armani," as University of Michigan students call it, is a verdant isle of aisles where a puffy black North Face jacket was priced at $24.99 this week and an Under Armour version cost $8 less. Amid the Salvation Army's 29 southeast Michigan stores , agreed manager Catherine Wale, hers is understood to be the most likely to receive a Coach bag alongside a toaster in a box of donated goods.

That still does not, officially, make it the world's best thrift store . The title was awarded Monday by a guy named Rob from Ypsilanti who was looking at books, which are mostly priced at two for 99 cents.

Luxury goods are an attraction, though, even on the first day of move-in week for fall semester, when a larger than usual throng was perhaps more interested in furnishings than fashion. As young minds arrived at U-M in search of illumination and their desks needed the same, a 33,616-square-foot store with dozens of cheap used lamps and endless other household items became a logical destination.

Chances are nobody was searching for a spring-loaded pole with footrests. But Miller, 25, will sometimes find a golf club valuable enough to flip on eBay, and the nearby pogo stick jumped out at him.

He's a monthly visitor with Megan McBee, 23, who had her hands full with three pairs of pants and a $5.99 antique white ceramic box with roses on the lid that was going home with them to hold her jewelry.

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That left her unable to catch him if he tumbled, or to scoop him up afterward, but he still took a few off-balance hops on the gray concrete floor. Though the price was attractive, only $9.99, he decided the potential for damage wasn't.

"I'm going to put this back," he said, "so I don't break my leg."

Along with wearables, Salvation Armani offers everything from $34.99-on-up flat screen TVs to a $7.99 George Foreman grill to a $1.99 plastic nightlight in the form of a pudgy Indiana University football player. But it does not sell splints or crutches, which made Miller's decision even more wise.

Lands' End and new beginnings

The store is close enough to Michigan Stadium that it does a tidy side business parking cars on football Saturdays. In the lot at State Street and Stimson on Monday, a white Tesla sat a few spaces away from a white Honda Civic whose front bumper was held in place by duct tape.

Inside, cashier Dakota Shull sang Christian pop hits between customers, while a mother and daughter from Manchester filled a cart with collectibles and back-to-school clothes and a pair of graduate students scooped up $1.99 T-shirts to imprint with an inside joke about decomposition of organic matter.

Typical Ann Arbor, in other words, where students with eclectic interests and low budgets share a city with enough economically blessed residents to donate Lululemon and Michael Kors to a thrift shop. Found, in order, on a rack of women's white blouses: Coldwater Creek, J. Crew, Lands' End, Brooks Brothers, Croft & Barrow. And, just for humility's sake, Merona, the former house brand at Target.

The daily selection "depends on our wonderful donors," Wale said, meaning there's no guarantee that shoppers will find items that began their retail life at Nieman Marcus.

It is guaranteed, however, that proceeds support the Salvation Army's rehabilitation center in Detroit, where a work therapy program places clients in the sorting rooms of stores, and several have thrived enough to become managers.

Heather Stommen, the mom from Manchester, said she was very much aware she was shopping in "a high socio-economic area," and also that her money was truly trickling down to people who need help.

She and her daughter, Sarah, liked that as much as they liked the black and white vertically striped jumper they found for Sarah at $7, the dresses Sarah will wear for senior pictures, and the set of ceramic containers Heather will sell at her antiques booth near her parents' home in Traverse City.

Stommen, a recently retired second-grade teacher, wound up with a full shopping cart of goods for $250, "about what I'd have spent on two or three items at the mall."

Her overall analysis: "Very, very awesome."

Oddities in the inventory

Salvation Armani has its share of oddities, of course, which is part of the magic of a thrift shop − even if it's in a former warehouse so massive that it probably housed hippos, or maybe cement trucks.

Hand-held hair dryers, for instance, share a display rack with leaf blowers, an advanced form of the same concept. The minimally stocked personal hygiene shelf features a 99-cent tube of Veet Hair Removal Cream, presumably unopened.

While most books and other media cost 49 ½ cents apiece, some hardcovers are marked at $2.99, including Suze Orman's "The Courage to Be Rich." If you want to be able to donate Hermes scarfs to Salvation Armani, apparently, you need to make a bigger investment up front.

Befitting, perhaps, their eventual salaries, a T-shirt in the U-M section for the Public Defender Training Institute is tagged at $1.99. For the School of Music, Theater and Dance: $3.99. For a yellow T featuring a blue Block M and a cheese grater: $6.99.

For actual cheese graters in the housewares department: $1.99.

Ally Sung-Jereczek , 29, who recently completed her master's in the School of Environmental Sustainability, and her friend Julia Blike were pillaging racks for assorted $1.99 T-shirts that still had room for something else to be printed on them.

"We'll grab a bunch, then edit them down," Sung-Jereczek said. Ultimately, the keepers will be distributed to friends with the message, "I Found Love in the Composting Toilet."

Love in a toilet, Lululemon at a thrift shop ... you don't bank on it, but it can happen.

Some of Neal Rubin's most obnoxious Hawaiian shirts have come from thrift shops. Reach him at NARubin@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ann Arbor’s ‘Salvation Armani’ thrift store known for its luxury finds, quirky treasures