Shopping District: This is an occasional column on shopping in the D.C. area.

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One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, or so consignment stores would like you to think. My corollary to this ancient pillar is that one woman’s trash is usually still trash, even if it’s been consigned at a cute boutique. The treasures on offer at secondhand stores tend toward the smell of damp closets, the image of pit-stained tank tops, and the feel of pilled polyester. Those, anyhow, are the memories that follow me as I step under the striped awning of Clarendon’s Current Boutique.

In seconds, aha! The sight of a black Cole Hahn platform loafer, the sassiest and preppiest I’ve ever seen. A row of unwrinkled satin dresses flutters to my right. A round rack of pristine sweaters draws me left. Years of bad consignment experience erase. My heart beats fast, stirred by this peek into a rich woman’s closet.

Every label I wear or wish I wore is here. J.Crew. Banana. Badgley Mischka. Trina Turk. I go faster. Cropped navy peacoat with carved wooden toggles. Peach silk blouse. Cable-knit cardigan with nary a pill. Some bear the original store tags; all are marked to manageable prices. It’s a micro-edited, greatest hits version of the mall, 70 percent off. In this living-room-sized space there's got to be a designer gem in just my size, or a working-wardrobe staple for a song. Or both.

Some clunkers have snuck in there----a fuchsia French Connection skirt that bears a strong resemblance to a bathmat, for example. But for the most part, the collection looks fresh. A red tweed trumpet from H&M is $12.95; a rayon Burberry A-line is $69.95. I want them. As I examine a row of black pencil skirts, I realize that yes, in fact I do need one in linen (Max Mara), one with silver-threaded pinstripes (BCBG), one short and shiny (Philip Adec) and one slightly flared with wide pleats (Ellen Tracy). I didn’t know that I needed six new skirts until Current Boutique charmed me with its shabby chic décor and gently worn cashmere cardigans.

The spell is broken as I move to denim. Plenty of good names (Citizens, Seven) and good prices (one pair from True Religion is going for $56.95), but most of the jeans look exactly like the pile of mid-wash bootcut denim that’s languished at the bottom of my dresser for two years. Nothing special. On to dresses.

I pick through some little 1990s velvet numbers that have no business being here and a few taffeta frocks that look bridesmaidal before hitting a bandage-style, red Calvin Klein dress. Also: a tiny, perfect black strapless Trina Turk. It’s $100, and I swear I saw it at Bloomingdales for $300 a year ago.

I duck into a pink fitting room. Black and white striped curtains don’t quite seal it off, but privacy’s a non-issue in the all-female store. I try on an absurdly conservative Brooks Brothers skirt that I pulled off a rack at the last second: plaid, high-waisted, hemmed below the knee. But paired with a floral Croft and Barrow blouse (floral and plaid! Current makes you do crazy things!) it’s more zany librarian than frumpster. Alas, the skirt sags at the waist. The red dress also fails to fit. I think of the Other Woman who once wore this and wonder if she too tugged in annoyance at the ill-fitting top.

The Trina Turk, though, is a dream. With a precisely formed sweetheart neckline, weightless boning in the bodice, and burnished copper medallion pinned at the waist, it’s a rich girl’s dress. At $100 it’s a fraction of a full-price Trina Turk, but I feel myself hesitating. Is this the best I can find? Should I put that $100 toward that pink motorcycle-style cardigan instead? Maybe I should have looked through the suiting rack more carefully. Or belts. I barely looked at the belts. And something better might be coming in tomorrow. Should I come back tomorrow?

Beset with indecision, I leave the dress behind. Remorse strikes me over the following days each time I examine my credit card statement. Three salads at Chop’t (one-third a Trina Turk); 50 bucks dropped on Metro (half a Trina Turk); utilities bill (several Trina Turks). The little black dress haunts me until I march back into Current Boutique weeks later and see an unworn, lime-and-cream houndstooth coat in sumptuous wool, its J.Crew tag still pinned to the satin label. It fits, and Trina Turk is forgotten. I pay $130 for this $500 masterpiece and leave all remorse behind.