The most valued item in Lauri Apple's wardrobe is a vintage fur-trimmed jacket.

And she's not ashamed to say that she snagged it from the garbage outside a resale shop in Oakland as she was walking home from class at the University of Pittsburgh one evening in 1994.

"I can't believe people are wasting this," she remembers thinking.

She scored several other quality pieces along with the jacket -- "I couldn't stand the idea of those items going into a landfill" -- and so was born a passion for finding and reusing tossed or lost fashions.

In March 2006, Ms. Apple launched www.foundclothing.typepad.com to create a community of shared stories about found fashion. A month later, The New York Times reported on her unusual interest. And after the Chicago Tribune wrote about her last year, she was invited to appear on NBC's "Today" show in August.

Ms. Apple, 32, can vouch for the fact that one person's trash is another's treasure. Among her most prized possessions plucked from refuse in cities across the country are an Armani sweater, Burberry fur pieces, and a "timeless" brown-and-cream checkered Ann Taylor business suit that she found in a little red bag on a curb near a Soho apartment building on Feb. 4, 2007.

Her most recent finds were four pairs of gloves from a church in Johnstown -- her hometown -- that she and a friend visited April 26 as part of a project photographing closing churches. They're posted on her Web site, along with finds submitted by others as far away as the United Kingdom.

Two years ago, less than 10 percent of Ms. Apple's wardrobe consisted of found items. Now, they comprise more than half.

She has noticed that many people look with disdain at what they consider scavenging. But she sees what she does as a sort of sartorial search and rescue, reclaiming from rubbish clothing and accessories -- and sometimes home furnishings -- that can and should be reused.

She remembers attending a birthday celebration and being introduced to an interior designer. When the woman learned of Ms. Apple's love of reclaiming discarded fashions, she expressed disgust.

"She acted like I had leprosy," said Ms. Apple. "But later I heard that the same woman got drunk at a bar and flipped her dress over her head. How is that less gross than picking out a sweater from a bag on a curb that is not dirty or covered in trash? I'm not sitting in a Dumpster with banana peels on my head. I don't sit around in Dumpsters all day long, rooting around in them."

Not that there's anything wrong with Dumpster-diving, she quickly added. In fact, those individuals take recycling one step further by reclaiming wasted food, she said.

"And they've got a great point, too, because often the stuff they get is packaged up and put in special bags. It's not dirty. And that's the statement -- we're throwing away these things we call trash, and it's not trash. Trash to me is things like used Band-aids and diapers."

With the ailing U.S. economy, more people may find themselves more open to hunting for free and previously owned items, including clothing. But the practice really isn't about economics, suggests James Nachlin, a New York computer programmer who started garbagescout.com in January 2006.

"There's a sort of ethos involved," he said. "Her site really taps into it. There's a sort of fun about it. It saves money. It's kind of a challenge, in a way, to find and use things."

Initially, no one posted found clothing on his site. Although that is changing a little, he's not sure the people will find found clothing as acceptable as found furniture.

"I think most people have a great fear of wearing things they've found on the street," he said, "even if they wash them."

Mr. Nachlin and Ms. Apple observed that the recent bedbug scare in New York City has caused their ilk to cut back on gleaning -- but not completely. The thrill of the hunt is too great, and they have enough sense to avoid things like pillows and cushions.

There are a few clothing items Ms. Apple always bypasses.

"Underwear and panty hose," she said. "And socks. Unless they're brand new."

Ms. Apple's conservation-consciousness and love of fashion as "personal expression" are rooted in her childhood.

"I've always liked treasure hunts and sunken ships and finding things," she said. "I've always been drawn to dinosaurs and primates and that sort of thing. Anything you can discover."

She was an only child, the product of Catholic schools and parents who came from sizable families influenced by the Great Depression and the decline of the domestic steel industry.

"I come from a long line of working-class people, people who struggled and recycled their own clothes," said Ms. Apple, whose ancestry is British, German and Polish. "There's always been this idea that you shouldn't waste what you have because there are people going without. Don't take what you have for granted."

She came to Pittsburgh in 1993, earning a bachelor's degree in the history of art and architecture at Pitt. Possibly because of her ancestry, she felt an urge to move to Prague.

She traveled there in August 1996 and stayed six months. "I didn't have friends there. I was fortunate enough to find clothes in Dumpsters, and that's how I made it. I just didn't have enough money."

From 1998 to 2000, she wrote and edited for In Pittsburgh, the defunct alternative weekly, and later earned a bachelor's degree in history from Pitt.

She also worked at several positions in Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas, before heading to the Big Apple to attend the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. She graduated last spring, along the way realizing that she had no desire to practice law.

So she moved to Chicago, where she has friends. The Windy City is "a nice compromise between Austin and Pittsburgh," she said. "It has Pittsburgh's lack of pretension, with more young people and options."

She works part time as a visual arts researcher for the Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and is looking for more gainful employment.

But she has no plans to give up her FoundClothing enterprise. It's as if she has a radar that homes in on discarded clothes.

"I can't explain it," she said. "I just know. I know that bag is going to have something in it."