We’ve all had bug bites, or dry scalp, or a sunburn that causes itch. But what if you felt itchy all the time — and there was no relief?

Journalist Annie Lowrey suffers from primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), a degenerative liver disease in which the body mistakenly attacks cells lining the bile ducts, causing them to inflame. The result is a severe itch that doesn’t respond to antihistamines or steroids.

“It feels like being trapped inside your own body,” Lowrey says of the disease. “I always describe it as being like a car alarm. Like, you can’t stop thinking about it.”

PBC is impacts approximately 80,000 people in the U.S., the majority of whom are women. At its worst, Lowrey says, the itch caused her to dig holes in her skin and scalp. She’s even fantasized about having limbs amputated to escape the itch.

Lowrey writes about living with PBC in the Atlantic article, “Why People Itch and How to Stop It.” She says a big part of her struggle is coming to terms with the fact that she may never feel fully at ease in her skin.

“I talked to two folks who are a lot older than I was, just about like, how do you deal with it? How do you deal with the fact that you might itch and never stop itching? … And both of them were kind of like, ‘You put up with it, stop worrying about it and get on with your life,’” she says. “I think I was mentally trapped … and sometimes it’s like, OK, … go do something else. Life continues on. You have a body. It’s OK.”

Interview highlights

On why scratching gives us temporary relief

Scratching, it engenders pain in the skin, which interrupts the sensation of itch and it gives you the sense of relief that actually feels really good. It’s really pleasurable to scratch. And then when you stop scratching, the itch comes back. And the problem is that when you scratch or you damage your skin in order to stop the itch, to interrupt the itch, you actually damage the skin in a way that then makes the skin more itchy because you end up with histamine in the skin. And histamine is one of the hormones that generates itch within the body.

On the itch-scratch cycle

Histamine is an amazing chemical that does many, many, many things in our body and it’s part of our immune response. It leads to swelling so the body can come in to heal. And the scratching is meant to get whatever irritant was there off. And the itch-scratch cycle ends when the body heals. So I think that that’s all part of a natural and proper cycle. That’s part of our body being amazing at sensing what’s around it and then healing it. But we have some itch that’s caused by substances other than histamine. We’ve only started to understand that kind of itch recently. Similarly, we didn’t really … understand chronic itch very well until recently. And we’re in a period, I’d say in the last 20 years, of just tremendous scientific advancement in our understanding of itch. 

On why itching is contagious 

There’s actual studies that show that itching is contagious. So watching somebody scratch will make a person scratch. There’s this interesting question: Are people scratching empathetically in the way that we will mirror the movements of people around us, in the way that yawning is contagious or crying can be contagious? But it turns out that, no, it’s probably a self-protective thing. If you see somebody scratching, there’s some ancient part of your body that says that person might have scabies, that person might have some other infestation. I’m going to start scratching to get this off of myself because scratching is in part a self-protective mechanism. We want to get irritants off of the body, and that’s in part why we scratch.

On thinking of itch as a disease

When scientists said that itching is a disease in and of itself, what they meant was that chronic itching changes the body’s own circuitry in a way that begets more chronic itching. That implies that itching is not just a side effect, it’s a body process in and of itself. And so instead of just being a symptom … itch itself can kind of rewire the body and can be treated as a condition unto itself. And a lot of dermatologists see it that way. It’s often a symptom, often a side effect, but sometimes it’s really its own thing in the body.

On the social stigma around itching

If you saw somebody scratching themselves on the subway, would you go sit next to them? No, of course not. Just instinctively, I think you have that self-preservation mechanism. … It’s a really deep thing: Don’t get scabies. Don’t get bed bugs. Don’t get ticks on you. … I don’t think that people are trying to be cruel. I think there’s something deeply hardwired in there. … Like, don’t approach the mangy dog that looks like it has fleas all over it. Don’t approach the human that’s compulsively scratching themselves, which is socially coded in the same way that, like, chewing with your mouth open is. It’s not something that is an attractive thing to do.

On considering why so little attention paid to itch compared to pain 

Pain is so awful and I would never say that there’s something ennobling about pain. But I think that there’s a certain amount of social respect [given] to people who are going through [pain], and itching — you kind of sound like a Muppet. … You look like a dog with fleas. It’s embarrassing to scratch yourself in public. It’s inappropriate to scratch yourself in public. I think people just kind of don’t take it very seriously. I’ve also thought a lot about how, like, if you had a chronic itching support group, everybody would come into it and then just start scratching themselves, and then make everybody else itchier by being in the simple presence of people who are itchy. It’s something that people suffer through alone.

On finding acceptance 

I do think that even if I can’t quite come to terms with the itch, I have come to much better terms of the gift of being in a body that is getting sick, the gift of being in a body at all. … I always want to be careful to note … that I don’t think that illness is any kind of gift. And I don’t think that there needs to be upsides to bad things happening to people at all. But I do appreciate the insight that I’ve had into myself, even if I wish that I never had occasion to have it. …

You can endure a lot. Your body is going to fail you. It can feel completely crazy-making and obsessive and miserable. And you can survive it. You can just keep on breathing through it. You can do really amazing, wonderful things. And again, that’s not to say I think that it’s worth it, or that I’m taking the right lesson away from it. … Not everything needs to be a lesson. You don’t need to respond to things that are unfair and difficult in this fashion. But writing the piece led me to a much greater place of acceptance, and I really appreciated that.

Monique Nazareth and Anna Bauman produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Carmel Wroth adapted it for the web.

For every time you hear an Angeleno smugly say “I thrifted it,” there’s a story behind the last hands that held the garment. Maybe it belonged to a fabulous Hollywood costume designer. Maybe it was languishing at the back of a Silver Lake dad’s closet.

Either way, our clothes carry memory. While there are the big moments — like the dress your fave wore to the Oscars, or your first dinner at Damian — it’s the small moments in between that give a piece life. They’re the stains you can’t rub out, the holes around the collar, the crease marks forever etched into fabric. “Second life” is used often in this space, but it’s really one long, serpentine timeline.

Though fashion and passing down clothes are a collaborative effort, for vintage store sellers, a well-curated collection is a deeply personal act. Each seller brings their own story, knowledge, and imagination. We should all be thankful.

In L.A., we’re lucky to have some of the best vintage stores in the game. Where else could you find Ben Davis in the same place as an Armani suit? For this story, I reached out to four vintage sellers and asked them to share their most cherished items — the ones they can’t bring themselves to pass on, be it from their own wardrobe or a recent acquisition. All of the stores opened within the last 10 years: Le Boudoir (2022) specializes in new, Paris-imported lingerie; Aralda Vintage (2015) is known for playful designer womenswear; Wild West Social House (2023) uses a membership model for rare and high-end finds; and Millersroom (2015) is a haven for quality denim and remixed button-ups and blazers.

From leather chaps to a vintage Dior coat, the items that these sellers shared are reminders of why they do what they do — and what makes a piece last a lifetime.

Clémence Pariente of Le Boudoir: Vintage A-1 Genuine Leather Chaps

Clémence wears Réalisation Par dress, Suzanne Rae shoes.

I started collecting lingerie when I was about 15 years old. I would babysit at the time, and all the money from babysitting would go into this. I would never tell my mom, but I would wear those super big, long ’70s dresses and under, a full set: garter, stockings, corset. No one would know about it. I wasn’t even dating. It was fully for myself. It had no male gaze involved in it. It was very much something that made me feel so empowered, so feminine, so confident. I felt strong. It was my own secret. Super punk, in my head.

My style was more sleazy vintage: crazy ’80s lace, red leather, studded pieces that were really influenced by all the metal I was listening to. I started riding motorcycles a few years ago because I went through a breakup, and I think I needed a good adrenaline rush. Something that would make me feel. I felt so depleted of self-confidence, and I was such a shell of myself. I was looking for something that would empower me, and I loved the idea of being able to ride motorcycles with other women.

That’s why I started thrifting sexy leather pieces. I loved it as a whole aesthetic, but I wanted to remove it from this motorcycling boy world. I like the idea of removing those pieces and recontextualizing them into something more empowering.

I consider every piece that I find in Paris a little treasure. They’re like little trinkets from my travels. The French brands are better, and it’s easier for me to find some Dior pieces, for example, because they’re more affordable there. My customers love the romance and rarity because it comes from Paris.

But while on a ride in Idyllwild, I found these assless chaps, and I don’t think I’ll ever sell these ones, because I think this is the one piece that actually comes full circle. I rode in it, opened the store and used it to style a Playboy shoot.

I didn’t ride for too long, but I think it gave me the confidence I needed to open the store. I thought that if I can ride a motorcycle by myself, even though I was terrified of even driving a f—ing car, l can do anything else.

Brynn Jones Saban of Aralda Vintage: 2004 Vintage Dior Coat

Brynn wears Vivienne Westwood Fall/ Winter 1991/1992 from Pechuga Vintage, antique slip dress, Darner socks, Prada shoes. Hair Mike Lorenzano; Makeup Sophie Haig

At a young age, I was really drawn to clothes and fashion. Music videos and magazines were an escape for me. It was this ultimate fantasy of mine to be able to see such wonderful clothes and dress in them.

I grew up with Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears in my prime teen years. It was incredible for me to experience that giant pop phenomenon through my formative years. The textures and the velvet and sequins of the time never went away. You find a lot of that at Aralda.

I started sixth grade in 1996, and “Clueless” was just everything to everyone. So I showed up to school with a pen with feathers all over it and a sequin shirt. I was so into expressing myself through clothes. Looking back, it was such an amazing time because I was so confident, and I didn’t really care at all what people thought. Like, at some point, I wore a beeper that wasn’t even working just because it was part of my look.

I moved to Hawaii from Portland after I graduated high school and went to school for a semester and a half, then dropped out. I stayed in Hawaii and worked random jobs at a sandwich shop and a hotel. Then, I moved to Honolulu and started working at this giant mall there called Ala Moana. On my breaks, I would stop by the fancy stores and get super inspired. That was autumn/winter of 2004, and I remember so vividly going into Dior. This was during John Galliano’s tenure with the house. It was wild; there were crazy prints — plaids, leopard spots — in my favorite colors. Back then — I don’t even know if they still do this — they had these big flatscreens in the stores playing the runway show on loop. I remember standing there watching the whole show.

Christian Dior Fall 2004 by John Galliano

A couple years ago, I bought the insane giant cocoon jacket Gisele Bündchen wears in the show. I also had no business really even buying that because it’s so rare and a collector’s piece. It’s so rooted into this memory of mine. I was like, f— it. I’m buying this, and it’s very sentimental to me now. I was having a really good year at the shop, so I bought it not just for me but for my younger self.

The following year, Kensington Palace emailed the store asking for a 1950s Yves Saint Laurent for Dior dress we loaned to Bella Hadid. My store manager James [Gallagher] and I were like, ‘This has got to be a scam. Someone’s just trying to steal our dress.’ But they told us they were curating this exhibition at the Kensington Palace, “Crown to Couture,” and they wanted to feature the dress in the show. So we flew to London, my husband and I, for the first time, and I finally wore my big, loud cocoon coat to the exhibition preview. I was in London, wearing my coat, on the dime of my business that I built doing all this.

Kyle Julian Skye Muhlfriedel and Max Feldmann of Wild West Social House: Vivienne Westwood 1970s Seditionaries Muslin Top, Vintage 2001 Gucci Snakeskin Karate Pants

Max, left, wears Raf Simons AW2005 Eisenhower Jacket, Maison Martin Margiela SS2005 Artisanal Inside-Out Pants. Kyle wears Gianni Versace shirt, Vacheron Constantin watch, Margot de Taxco necklace.

Kyle Julian Skye Muhlfriedel: We’re building an ecosystem with Wild West Social House. I really do believe that if we put a moratorium on making clothing, nothing would change. We have all the clothing we ever need. I don’t like a lot of how we’re forced to interact with clothing. There hasn’t really been any innovation in the past 100 years in it. We offer our members a way to consume clothing that’s better, cheaper and more sustainable than what they’ve been offered. It’s a rising-tide-raises-all-boats ecosystem. And that’s really what we’re getting at here.

My parents were both in the punk scene. These tops were sold strictly by mail order within punk magazines. You would send in a check for 550 British pounds, tell them what print you wanted, and it would come back this way. I’m very interested in objects and places that feel like they have a soul. There’s an ancient Mesopotamian belief that physical objects can invite an external presence from a soul into it, and I’m very into pieces that I believe conjure that. I think fashion is exactly that. I wonder who owned it before me. This top just feels like pure punk lives in it. There was no mass dissemination of counterculture the way we have now. Whoever had this found it for a reason, and I’m sure it’s lived 100 lives before it got to me, and I like to think about the souls that inhabit it. This isn’t a piece you stumble upon by accident. It makes my heart stop anytime someone rents it out.

Vintage Mid-’70s Vivienne Westwood top. Max with Vintage 2001 Gucci Snakeskin Karate Pants.

Max Feldmann: My dad used to run record stores back in Arizona before I was even born, so I always had vintage T-shirts growing up. It started to click when people started asking me how much my shirts were. When my mom was in town she’d asked me to go with her to an archive store, and I saw pieces and silhouettes that I was not seeing anymore being created. The authenticity behind some of the old Comme des Garçons, Margiela — it spoke to me in a different way. It’s a better way to dress. I started getting into Japanese designers like Yohji Yamamoto and Number (N)ine. It just opened me up to this world. I was a men’s buyer for six years and worked at so many different retail stores, and I’d never seen silhouettes like that. They were just so bespoke. When everything’s one of one, but that one thing fits perfectly, there’s no better feeling in the world.

When we got a new consigner, I was really excited, because I had seen these karate pants before in other fabrications, but I never saw them in this snakeskin. These were worn on the runway — Spring/Summer 2001 Gucci by Tom Ford. I just love the shape, the silhouette and the construction. And it has a wrap tie. Men never wear wrap ties. It’s so versatile and could fit anywhere from like a size 30 to a size 36.

Marquise Miller of Millersoom: Vintage Carhartt Pants

Marquise wears Martine Rose and Supreme T-shirt, vintage cardigan from Millersroom, vintage Levi’s pants from Millersroom and Loewe shoes.

Vintage clothes were my entry point into fashion. I’m obsessed with “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “A Different World” and “Kids” with Rosario Dawson and Chloë Sevigny. I loved these styles so much, I was like, “I’m going to figure out a way to make a world out of it.”

Millersroom is a convenience store. It’s a vintage convenience store where you have your books, you have your records, you have your Picasso book. You also have your Levi’s. You have your reconstructed party dress. But then again, you have a distressed jacket with your blazer.

People who shop at the store always want a good pair of jeans, and I try to tell them that it’s not about Levi’s jeans. It’s about the best jeans that hold up. It could be a Dickies. It could be a Carhartt. It could be an old pair of Walmart Rustler jeans. You just need a good pair of denim that sustains and will look chic with whatever loafers.

I feel the most successful when I wear these Carhartt pants. They’ve been through it, but they’re still here, heavy and great. There’s so much character in the stray paint strokes, the blackened thighs. I need to feel like I know what I’m doing, and they help me feel more assertive and in alignment. I feel assertive when I feel aligned. They’re my superpower pants.

I love that I can change the world with my vision through fashion. What I say goes. I go out and source new old clothes, and I feel good. When I’m styling, I love when I’m able to bring something from here and mix it in with all the fabulous designer clothes, and my clients gravitate to my piece. That’s my favorite. That’s when I was like, I’m really doing my big one because that brings something that I know they’re not gonna be able to find anywhere else.