RERUN Featured in “The Quad”

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Photo Story: Do You Even Thrift?

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April 12, 2016

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From browsing through high-end vintage shops to peeking around consignment stores, shoppers are flocking to thrift shops to snatch up second-hand finds.Rerun in Portland, Oregon, Goodwill in Boston and Buffalo Exchange in Allston are three stores that prove customers have discovered the inherent value in not buying products at full price. Rerun is a resale store co-owned by husband and wife team Joe Hilsenrad and Angela Homme. Homme’s family had been in the antique business when she was younger, an experience which helped inspire the couple to start Rerun when they moved to Portland, Oregon in 2005.Buffalo Exchange, unlike Rerun, is a chain resale and consignment store with locations across the country. Since the store’s inception in 1974, Buffalo Exchange has become a booming business with 48 locations in 17 different states. People can now purchase their vintage goods online and sell their own clothing by mailing items in a the store.

Since it was founded in 1902, Goodwill has grown into an international nonprofit organization on a mission to “enhance the dignity and quality of life of individuals and families by strengthening communities, eliminating barriers to opportunity, and helping people in need reach their full potential through learning and the power of work,” according to their website. The enterprise is even more widespread than Buffalo Exchange, and now has 164 community-based locations in the United States and Canada.

These stores, founded for different reasons, are all part of the trendy thrift culture that attracts so many shoppers today.

When they first moved to their current neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, Joe Hilsenrad and Angela Homme, co-owners of Rerun, felt the need to start a resale store so that people would have a place to go with unwanted, yet valuable items like this colorful stock of blankets and linens.

The pants section at Buffalo Exchange provide an opportunity to browse a “wide variety of styles and brands on one rack as opposed to having to travel to multiple stores,” Frederickson says.

A shopper considers a Rolling Stones logo skirt at Rerun, proving that thrift shopping isn’t just about saving money, it’s also a way for shoppers to connect to the past.