When she was single and in her 20s, Eleanor Poirier discovered a love of secondhand clothing.
She stumbled into Lilise Designer Resale back when it was on Storrs Street in Concord. The colorful statement pieces, the lush fabrics and the vintage brands available for a fraction of their original price drew her into what she called “the perfect place for treasure-hunting.” She never looked back.
As a new mother, she found her closet full of pieces she doubted she’d have the occasion to wear anytime soon. When Lilise Designer Resale, now at its Main Street location, announced the opening of rentable booths at the start of the summer, Poirier jumped at the opportunity to open her closet to the community.
“The clothes that just don’t fit in my life anymore, they’re more fanciful that just I can’t have them being torn by children, and I get to the chance to bequeath them to my neighbors in that magical thrift store way,” said Poirier, who has been selling items through her booth since the initiative began in early June.
Owner Elyssa Alfieri began the project as a means of expanding her consignment model and getting more people involved. She had been wanting to create a community-oriented space in the vintage clothing store for years. The Community Loan Fund helped her get the idea off the ground, assisting with the cost of installing 21 booths in the basement of Lilise. She rents the booths to consigners and customers who sell clothes, shoes, jewelry and other items.
“Reselling is such an insulated thing. I think for a lot of people, especially today, not everyone is doing it in a brick and mortar space like I am. They’re doing it from their houses, on Instagram. It’s a saturated market, and so I think it’s difficult for people to find a way to get at however many customers are coming through this basement every single day,” said Alfieri, who took over the store from its original owner nine years ago and oversaw the move to Main Street.
Whereas regular consigners receive 40% of the proceeds from their items sold in the store, the “boothies,” as Alfieri refers to them, take home two-thirds of what the store makes on their clothes. They come in on Saturday mornings to set up their booths or, for monthly renters, refresh the options and fill empty hangers.
Longtime customer and consigner Denise Champagne loves that she gets to have a small resale business through the store she’s loved for over a decade.
“It seemed like it was a good convenience, and also kind of an opportunity to almost have your own little boutique within a boutique,” she said.
More than half of the 21 booths have been rented in the two months since their installation. Seeing the offerings for her fellow boothies reiterated for Champagne why she chooses to participate.
“I try to always support Elyssa and her shop, as a buyer, but also now I can support — maybe branch out — her customer base, because I can be promoting the fact that I have a booth, or that these booths exist and I can shop other booth partners,” Champagne said. “So it is a fun way to expand the whole experience and help her business and create some differentiation.”
Shopping secondhand gives customers an alternative to fast fashion or commercial brands whose values just don’t align with theirs, Alfieri said. This way, the money stays in the community.
She views fashion as a method of self-expression, also believing that outfits have the power to inspire confidence in the wearer and that clothes carry meaning.
“You’re kind of adopting that story of wherever that clothing traveled before, which could be really fantastical and amazing, but it also could just be really simple and it’s just a great item, and it just should not be thrown away yet, and it just should be adopted,” Alfieri said.
As Poirier watched her clothing take new life when people bought from her booth, she said she couldn’t escape a tinge of loss that accompanied the process.
“You have these deep feelings for your clothing, because you take them places. They go with you. They support you, and so saying goodbye to them can be this tearing on your heartstrings thing,” Poirier said.
She hopes her clothes will impact someone else in the way. That makes letting go a little easier.
“The ones that I’ve seen, the empty hangers, the things that have sold, it’s been a wonderful feeling, instead of that hollow yard sale feeling where you sell something for $4 and you’re like, ‘Oh no, are they going to appreciate it?’ You’ve set the stage on your terms for letting go of it, and you know that the person who bought it really wanted it,” Poirier said.
One of Alfieri’s favorite parts of both the community booths and the store as a whole is witnessing how clothing can bolster people and reaffirm their sense of self.
“I just want people to be who they are. That’s so important because I don’t think that everybody actually walks that walk. I think a lot of people say…’Come as you are.’ But then caveat is, ‘As long as it’s like me and it makes me comfortable,'” she said. “I don’t need to be comfortable by what someone’s wearing or like it myself in order to endorse them. I think it’s about pairing people up with what they need.”
For more information, visit https://www.liliseresale.com/