Montreal vintage store co-owners find new life in second-hand fashion

Vintage store thrives on sustainability Relove Vintage co-owners Jessica Yaffe and Jennifer Lassner are embracing second-hand fashion to promote sustainable shopping in Montreal.

After developing an online shopping addiction, Montrealer Jessica Yaffe said she discovered the world of second-hand clothing.

“I ended up thrifting and going to estate sales and just finding really interesting things," Yaffe said.

Yaffe said she even got her friend Jennifer Lassner into it. The women loved thrifting so much they eventually opened their own vintage store, Relove Vintage.

"We are trying to encourage people not to shop by trend but by 'What makes you feel good? What looks good on your body?’”

But opening their own store came with challenges.

"It was going really, really well. And we got a call late one Friday night that there was a flood. That's all we knew. The roof basically fell through the ceiling. We were very lucky that we didn't really lose much,” Yaffe said.

A stroke of luck, and just like the clothes they sell, now they too are getting a second chance, a new location in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood.

"We had a big epiphany in discovering this second-hand market, and I think others are too. There are actually just way too many clothes already on the planet. We are not suggesting that people don't buy new things. We're just suggesting that there's an alternative,” Yaffe said.

Lassner said it's those vintage pieces they carry that are bringing different generations together when they shop.

"We have grandmothers who come in, we have mothers who come in with their daughters and then they see what's going on,” Lassner said.

Yaffe added that the second-hand movement is gaining popularity on social media.

"Whenever I post on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or talk to somebody about what we do, the first response is often, 'I have to tell my daughter. I have to tell my niece. I have to tell my, you know, whatever.' It's very much a trendy kind of undertaking in that age group," Yaffe said.

It's a trend that these women said is here to stay. "We feel good about selling it for a very moderate price, knowing that it's not ending up, you know, on a beach somewhere."