The Sisterhood of Awesomely Cheap Pants -- what's your best fashion find?

I don't have an incredible amount of thrift store luck -- it's average to good, at best. I'm usually good to find one or two pieces, and even then, the amazing finds are fairly rare, being that I'm in one of the places where stylish thrifters are plentiful. I also keep my eye on several of the most awesome online sellers (there're quite a few in my Bloglines!), but sometimes I feel the need to go out and look for myself, you know?

So while I do have a couple of finds that I love (a vintage green coat from Chicago in Tokyo, an adorable dress from Brown Bear that I wore to the Glam party, a grey cardigan I wear ALL THE TIME from Buffalo Exchange), I found the best one back at a resale boutique when I was in college. (I do tend to stick to the resale and consignment-y boutiques versus true thrift stores like Savers and Goodwill, but I have found great things at Savers lately.)

Anyway, I'm one of those people who has about a bajillion pairs of jeans. I always forget how many pairs I have, but it's never really "enough". (Probably because half of them are always in the laundry at one given point.) So if I find a pair I like, I always think, "Huh, I do need another pair of jeans, don't I."

So I'm walking by this shop, as I usually did (it was between my apartment and campus), and they always had cute displays in the window and good deals -- the day I went in, everything was 50% off. I go in and I look around, and I notice a good-looking, practically brand-new pair of cuffed jeans and I think, "well, I like cuffed jeans. I don't have a pair that can really cuff nicely." I tried them on, I liked them, and they were $18. Not bad! Those can be my kickaround cuffed jeans. I take them to the register, she rings me up, and at 50% off, they're now $9 jeans. Yay!

Let's fast-forward a while. I'm back in California, browsing around Macy's, when I notice a familiar looking logo on the wall. Huh! That's the logo on my $9 jeans! I trot over to that section to see what my jeans were really worth. ...Yeah, it's a lot more than $9.

Honestly, I don't know how it happened that three of us -- the one who sold the jeans to the shop, the seller/pricer at the shop, and me -- didn't know what we had in that pair of jeans. But it worked out for me in the end, and they're still one of my favorite pairs of jeans. (There I am, rocking the cuffs in Tokyo.)

What has been your most serendipitous find? It doesn't have to be a thrift store or resale find, but something awesome and unexpected and, ultimately, much less than you would expect to pay for it. If you haven't found anything just yet, what's your dream find?

images from couturecandy.com and periodicstyle.blogspot.com