You’ll rarely see such an unusual setting for a thrift store. In downtown Aspen, Colorado, a mountain town that’s been overtaken by wealthy commerce, you’ll find the bustling Aspen Thrift Store literally across the street from Dior and Gucci stores. For seven decades, volunteers at the Aspen Thrift Shop have turned donated clothing, shoes and [...]
When word of a particularly good resale store spreads way beyond its geographic location, it’s worth checking out. We had heard many thrifters exult over the snappily-named Frugalicious shop in Easton, MD. (Definition: “To be frugal and fabulous at the same time.”) These shoppers didn’t live nearby, but in Washington D.C., Boston and New York [...]
New Yorkers put their own spin on nearly every endeavor. Thrift stores are no exception. Let’s look at just one player in the city – Housing Works, with 13 thrift stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn, medical centers and its bookshop/cafe in Soho, all dedicated to supporting people living with HIV/AIDS. There are so many events [...]
Allison and Peggy wrote two pieces for The Washington Post about textile waste, and what two forward-looking clothing companies, Patagonia and Eileen Fisher, are doing to repair, re-use and recycle their clothing. Here are examples of Eileen Fisher's Renew products, made from previously worn garments from its fashion line. Read the articles here: https://wapo.st/2PYByhD and here: https://wapo.st/2NEbDdA [...]
One of the benefits of thrift shopping is the near-constant element of surprise. You can’t predict what you’ll find on the racks – or in the case of a recent visit to a very good Goodwill in Easton, Maryland, what you’ll hear from salesclerks. “Everything’s half-off today – all except the new merchandise!” the clerks [...]
In this week that contains National Thrift Shop Day, it's fascinating to see how the resale universe is expanding. Years ago, the category was pretty much defined by hospital auxiliary thrift shops and big national nonprofits -- Goodwill, St. Vincent de Paul, DAV and The Salvation Army. But in the past decade or so, the [...]
Hospitals and thrift stores have had a long marriage. Nearly every city, large and small, has an auxiliary group of volunteers – usually run by women — who operate thrift stores to raise money for medical costs for the needy and to support hospital operations. There are literally thousands of hospital thrift stores across America, [...]
