Hide and Seek Part V: Oak Spreads Its Roots in Brooklyn

We decided to take advantage of being led around Brooklyn a few days ago to hunt down a store that had popped up on our radar. Let us clarify that Oak is not a hidden store simply because it is in Brooklyn. We're not that snobby. In both its locations, however,  Oak is just far enough off the beaten path to be easily missed by anyone searching the obvious thoroughfares, and well camouflaged enough to evade anyone but the truly serious. Let's start with the original Williamsburg store pictured above, after the jump.

Alex K Goes Shopping: Outer Borough Thrift Shop Edition

First off, we must say that we usually like to get our Critical Shopper follow-up posted promptly on Thursday, but this week in the New York Times' Thursday Styles, Alec Kuzcynski had us careening all over Brooklyn which gave us time-mamagement issues. Geographical challenges aside, we made sure to hit her choice thrift stores in Williamsburg and Park Slope, though we have a litle trouble visualizing our ever more intrepid Alex, cheap though she may purport to be, rummaging through racks of pre-owned clothes. And for good reason. Apparently a used purse is enough to send her fertile mind reeling:

I bought a metallic clutch purse at Alice Underground, inside of which I found half a piece of chewing gum, a torn ticket to the Metropolitan Opera and a $20 bill. It made me sad to think that one day you wake up and go to the opera and neatly tear your stick of Wrigley’s in half and tuck the rest back into your purse, and the next you’re dead and your kids have given away your clothes and some dumb college kid is taking your handbag to a nightclub, where she will use the $20 for overpriced drinks.

Imagine what an entire closet of vintage would do to her imagination.

More after the jump