Thrill of the hunt: Why there is a boom in vintage and thrift shopping

Kelsey Dech grew up going to thrift stores with her mom and grandma — and because her parents had her and her brother young, budget-wise, it was not in the cards for them to buy everything brand new.

But as Dech, a second-hand shopper and content creator, got older and more financially independent, especially during university, she still found herself gravitating towards thrift shopping for items ranging from clothing to furniture and houseware.

“I love the thrill of the hunt,” Dech says. “I’ve always loved that — and I just found I could experiment more with my personal style and find more unique pieces at a fraction of the cost, rather than going to the big box stores and the mall.”

A perfect day at the thrift store for Dech means going on a weekday she has off — a practical crossbody bag or fanny pack, water bottle, and tape measure in tow — and visiting the different sections and racks of clothes. Her most cherished finds from the thrift are a Burberry trench coat, black Prada leather heels, and a bright green Zara sequined skirt.

“It’s a skirt I had been looking for and had been on my list for months,” Dech says. “It was in my size. It was super, super affordable. It was in pristine condition. I was like, ‘Great, I just manifested that.’”

It was not just her upbringing that piqued her interest in second-hand shopping — it was starting her career in the fashion industry. Dech got to see and learn how fast fashion, over-consumption, and buying new were detrimental to the environment, leading her to prioritize buying second hand as a young adult.

And Dech is far from alone in embracing second-hand shopping.

A study conducted by the Angus Reid Group and DIG360, a retail consultancy firm, in May 2025 found that 77 per cent of adult Canadians bought at least one pre-owned item in the past year, with young people driving the trend. Participation rates among just generation Z rose to 86 per cent, with millennials trailing close behind at 83 per cent.

The two biggest contributors to the popularity of second-hand shopping in Canada are affordability and sustainability, which 77 per cent and 73 per cent of respondents reported as their top motivators respectively.

Another driver to the rise of second-hand shopping is finding unique fashion pieces, says David Ian Gray, DIG360 founder, retail advisor, and retail studies instructor at Capilano University’s School of Business.

“It’s really an indictment of mall-based retail today. In the last number of years, you could go store to store [and] a lot of the stuff looks exactly alike, just with a different label on it,” Gray says. “Young people now are buying styles and looks, not so much a brand name.”

Young people have also been driving forces behind the stigma of perceived hygiene concerns and low economic status going away, especially when it comes to buying used clothing, home decor, and kitchen items, Gray says.

“There wasn’t that baked-in ‘shame factor.’ I would imagine as young people said, ‘Hey, I want to go to the thrift store, I want to go to the vintage stores,’ there are probably moms going, ‘Oh no, we don’t do that,’ coming from a different mindset,” he says. “With most trends, I think youth like to carve out their own agendas, and so the fact it was different from a prior generation didn’t hurt — it probably helped.”

A big reason for the normalization of pre-owned shopping, Gray says, is social media influencers, who produce content on discovering cool pieces and building outfits.

“That’s what social media does: it endorses activities, normalizes them, and makes people aspire to them and want to do that activity, [which is] the hunt and the find [of] the unique items you can get.”

Gray says this trend extends across product classes, from basics to luxury goods. There are sites like Poshmark and stores selling used near-luxury and luxury brand goods, he adds, but the largest player is Facebook Marketplace, which the study found 76 per cent of past-year buyers used.

“There was Kijiji and Craigslist, [which] were the forerunners,” Gray says. “Some people used those, but there’s something about Facebook Marketplace that’s really made it easy. The visualizations are good. There are some issues with it, but the adoption of [the platform] across the Canadian public has been phenomenal.”

Trailing behind Facebook Marketplace are charitable thrift stores and garage sales, with Value Village, a large, for-profit thrift retailer, and vintage or antique stores also attracting substantial traffic, the study found.

Self-expression and community

It wasn’t until 2019 that Dech decided to prioritize creating thrifting and sustainable fashion-focused content on Instagram — and amassing a following on the platform from her hauls and posts of her styled looks has been both “humbling and invigorating.”

“When you find your people, you feel like this is where [you’re] supposed to be, this just feels right. It’s kind of unexplainable when you find your people, whatever niche that is,” she says, adding social media provides users with camaraderie, friendship, and connection.

Dech says she gets recognized in public, which has sparked conversations about how she’s inspired her viewers to shop second hand more.

“I’m not here to shame anyone for their consumption choices,” she says. “I’m not here to judge people. I’m definitely here to offer another perspective, hopefully inspire people, and meet that one [person] who decides instead of buying a leather jacket new, they’re going to go to their local Value Village or Poshmark.”

By thrifting and vintage shopping, Dech says her personal style has evolved by being exposed to different silhouettes, eras of fashion, and high-end designers she wouldn’t otherwise be able to pay full price for.

“It pushes me to experiment rather than to shop within this framework that some brands [have],” she says. “I love aesthetics, a strong brand vision, and all of that, but there’s something to be said about shopping outside of the lines.”

Liz Krebs, vice-president of operations at The Only Vintage in Vancouver, echoes Dech’s sentiment about being exposed to an array of fashion pieces in the second-hand shopping space. Standouts for Krebs that The Only has found include rare Levi’s denim, century-old eyelet dressing gowns, and pieces from the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s.

“It’s always fun to find vintage designer,” Krebs says. “[There’s] so much fast fashion now, which is the majority of the stuff that’s out there. [That] is a bit depressing because it’s not going to have the longevity of higher-quality pieces. The exciting thing to find is designer because it’s well made and going to stand the test of time.”

Shopping and styling

Elizabeth Bull, founder and lead stylist of GetStyled.ca and fashion styling faculty member at Blanche Macdonald Centre, has been shopping second hand since she was in Grade 9 in the mid-’90s.

Bull encourages her clients and students to build a collection of “heavy-lifting pieces” or neutrals, which can include white T-shirts and a good pair of jeans.

“Once you have these things, you can start building the funkier things on top of it,” Bull says. “Because if you just collect statement pieces … you’ll have a closet full of clothes, but nothing to wear. You do have to balance it — the accent, the fun, the thrifted pieces — with the stuff you can actually wear it with.”

However, Bull says neutrals can be harder to come by at thrift stores since people usually wear them till they fall apart.

“There’s a good balance in going to Gap and getting the Supima white T-shirt that fits beautifully and then wearing it with the more unique vintage pieces.”

When shopping for second-hand clothing, Bull recommends making a list of things, but to “also leave it open to magic.” She recommends investing time in going through the whole store, making sure you’re hydrated and had a good meal ahead of time to avoid making hunger-induced bad decisions.

She also recommends shopping “around” your size to find tailored or oversized fits.

“[What] I want to make sure folks do is buy stuff that fits them today, [not] flushing money down the toilet.”

For Krebs, she says it is a good idea to ask for a tape measure at vintage and thrift stores, since sizes have changed drastically over the years and many places don’t offer returns or exchanges.

For those looking for looks in the Y2K aesthetic, Bull says to not neglect going to thrift stores in the suburbs.

“The stuff thrifted there is going to be significantly cheaper, and there’s going to be a lot more selection in the ‘80s, ‘90s, early 2000s genre.”

Bull says another aspect about thrifting is that many pieces will have stains, missing buttons, and unravelling seams, so she encourages people to only buy pieces in “immaculate condition,” unless they have the bandwidth to repair the items.

To find cheaper pieces, Bull says to shop off season, such as by hunting for pre-owned winter apparel in August. Similarly, she recommends looking for items when people are shopping for the next season.

“I get a lot of awesome sandals on The RealReal for like $20, $30, or $40 each because I’m shopping for sandals on Boxing Day.”

With the rise in vintage and thrifting, Bull says it is exciting that “people can let their freak flag fly,” even though it is a little hard to in Vancouver.

“There’s such a culture of athleisure [here], and I think a lot of people don’t necessarily love that look, but will buy it just because everyone else is wearing it. They don’t want to be the unique one out of the group.”

An example of breaking the mould is Bull’s faux fur vest she nicknamed Fashion Bear.

“As a plus size woman, [we] are told to never wear anything that adds more volume to your figure, like wear stuff that makes you look thinner, dark colours, body con, skim your curves, etc. — and I think that’s pretty lame because that really limits what we’re encouraged to wear. I never fall for those kind of shenanigans.”

The first time Bull wore Fashion Bear, she says she felt uncomfortable. But now, she wears the vest almost every day.

“When you embrace the cringe and go out of your comfort zone, you find this new confidence,” she says. “I’ve never been complimented while wearing a T-shirt and leggings, but I have been complimented by people when I wear Fashion Bear.”

Changes and the future of shopping second hand

With vintage shopping becoming well known and accessible, Krebs says she’s noticed it’s becoming harder to find special pieces, since items are being picked through more.

She has also noticed more young people starting their own second-hand stores and Instagram businesses.

“It used to be quite an elitist-type business,” Krebs says. “A lot less accessible, a lot less friendly people working at vintage stores, a lot more niche. But I feel like it being more mainstream is a good thing in terms of more variety, more options.”

Dech says she’s seen prices at thrifts fluctuate over the past few years and changing rooms disappear, but like Krebs, she has also witnessed the boom of digital second-hand shopping platforms and people starting their own second-hand shops. She’s also noticed more brands start to take in and resell their items.

But Dech has seen the quality of goods being donated to thrift stores decline.

“I think that’s attributed to these larger, fast fashion conglomerates that are on the rise,” Dech says. “It’s like second-hand shopping’s on the rise, but so are the Sheins of the world. We’re still seeing over-consumption, and then those pieces are just being donated.”

While trends come and go, Gray believes shopping second hand is here to stay.

“What could slow it down is it becomes so trendy that the price point [for something] isn’t really that good relative to a new one. Even if you’re doing it for environmental reasons, there’s still an expectation that you’re going to pay less. I think that price difference will always have to be there,” Gray says.

“Going forward, even if the economy turns up, it’s a behavior shift, and I think there’s enough people who became comfortable with [pre-owned shopping].”