The regulars of a New York City thrift shop share their experiences and lives with each other while shopping or working at the store where everybody knows your name, has your back and you might even score a pair of smoking hot used Manolo’s.

SYNOPSIS:

A PERSONAL NOTE: When I moved to New York over 15 years ago, a naïve young actor from Baylor University in Texas, my first job, oddly enough, was working for a church on Gramercy Park. My salary? A FREE APARTMENT. It was a miracle. It was also a crazy, difficult, creatively rich world to be in. I still live on the park. And the rag tag group of friends I met continue to play a beautiful role in my life. They’ve helped me change, grow, own my “white privilege” and find my true self. All of which (plus my husband being in fashion) inspired this show.

INTRO: Fashion is to New York what movies are to Hollywood. Synonymous. And from Carrie’s cavernous shoe closet to Serena van der Woodsen’s Barney’s shopping sprees, we’ve seen shows highlight, celebrate, and sell all the fashion New York has to offer…but let’s be real. Could Carrie Bradshaw really afford dozens of Manolo’s on a journalist’s salary? And who of us can step into Barneys and buy a $34,000 crocodile backpack by The Row? Still, I want to find a way to be in the mix. Here is where our Thrift Ladies step in.

Thrift Ladiesis a half our dramedy that gives us a grittier New York than we’ve seen on TV in a long time. It’s about four idiosyncratic women from ages 20 to 80 who work at a Church Thrift Shop on Gramercy Park. And our shop isn’t just another Thrift shop, it’s the best kept fashion secret in the city, where the young hip ladies with champagne taste on a beer budget go to get their fashion armor and a whole lot more.

TONE: A mix between the New York and fashion of “The Devil Wears Prada” and the racial and social inequality of “All in the Family.” We walk a tight line between the fun and humor of fashion, and the deeper racial and social issues that still pervade our culture, covering everything from racism and patriarchy to lip gloss and Celine. It’s blunt. And funny. But not in a traditional, punch-line, laugh track kind of funny. More in an episodic, situational kind of funny. Most importantly, it’s because these women are so different in age, economics, and race, that we have a space to talk about serious issues all the while making our audience laugh.

CHARACTERS: So, who are our Thrift Ladies? There’s Thelma (LYNN COHEN), the fun loving, sexy, adventurous 80-year-old volunteer who has awkward “priest-like” confessional conversations with the girls as they change behind the dressing room curtain. Clara, the spunky F.I.T. student and comic relief who thinks she’s going to be the next Stella McCartney but will be lucky if she gets a job designing underwear for now, and our diva, Roxanne, a brilliant 40-something African American woman from Bed-Stuy who, if she came from privilege, would be Grace Coddington (Creative Director of Vogue) by now.

PILOT: Roxanne has poured her knowledge and creativity into our Thrift Shop. On the outside, it may look like a dump, but underneath the mounds of clutter is fashion gold. And just as in every world in New York, our Thrift Shop is exclusive. In our first episode we watch Roxanne take a Gucci bag away from a woman who offers her $500 for it. She responds, “I don’t care if you give me $5,000 for it. You cannot have this bag.” Why? Because the woman won’t make the bag look good, “it’s just wrong.” Plus, Roxanne, with the help of Thelma and Clara, has created a sense of community and family for these young hip women trying to make it in New York. They know that someone has their back. They’ve found their family, their home. And TODAY is the day the new priest’s wife, Harper Greene, fresh off the boat from Plano, Texas, is about to come in and fuck everything up. Or maybe not.

Our pilot brings Roxanne and Harper head to head as we discover that the shop has no money and is about to go under. Lucky for our Thrift Ladies, Harper isn’t just another priest’s wife. She has real world business skills that could help save the Thrift. It may be Roxanne’s giftedness and “purist mentality” that have made the Thrift so special, but it’s also what holds her and the store back. Maybe Harper isn't going to ruin everything after all. And like any odd-couple relationship, Harper and Roxanne begrudgingly discover that they need each other. Really, all of our ladies need each other.

THE HEART OF OUR SHOW: Legendary New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham said that “Fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life.” And this is really the heart of our show. The Thrift isa place where women find their armor and where they also can take it off, knowing that someone has their back. It’s a place where they can discover who they are, deep down. And in spite of how different these ladies are in every way, and their ongoing conflicts, they find a way to be there for each other no matter what. Our show will push, challenge and be provocative, but our Thrift Ladies will show us a way through all of that. At times that way will be dirty, sometimes blunt, most times it will be funny, but all of this knowing that we do life better when we do it together.