Abiba Biao photo
Jamie Dawn: “With a consignment store, depending on the store, you could be very choosy about what you select.”
Jamie Dawn saw an increasing appetite for secondhand clothing and kitchenware and all other kinds of goods, especially among sustainability-minded college-aged shoppers — and decided to meet that demand by opening a new consignment shop on Broadway.
That new shop, called One Good For Another, is now open on the second floor of 59 Broadway.
Dawn, 59, who owns the shop, found inspiration for the venture in the rapid growth of the secondhand market among young adults.
“It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time,” she said about the consignment shop.
A Westville resident and real estate agent, she noticed the number of vintage and thrift shops in the city, but the lack of consignment shops. She to act on that vacancy by first perusing through business locations online.
Dawn said that there’s a distinction between consignment shops, thrifting, and vintage stores, even though the concepts are often conflated with one another.
“With a thrift shop, they will buy items out right from you and sell them very very inexpensively because some of them probably aren’t in the best condition,” she said. “With a consignment store, depending on the store, you could be very choosy about what you select.”
Dawn accepts only gently used clothing and trendy clothes now in fashion. This differs from vintage shops that hold items from periods as far back as the 70’s and 80’s.
She described consignment as “a little more upscale than a thrift shop,” but still offering bargains in the form of discounts that are 30 to 40 percent less than retail prices.
Pictures and wall decor which Dawn says are popular among Yale students looking to decorate their dorms.
Customers that bring in items to sell also get benefits.
“We give 40 percent to the consignors when their items sell, which they can receive cash or store credit,” Dawn explained.
If the consignor’s item doesn’t sell after 90 days they have the option to take it back. If not, those items become the store’s inventory and Dawn can decide to continue selling it or donate it to charity.
“My goal is to really just get it in the hands of people and organizations that really need it,” she said.
She’s currently researching charities to donate to, not opting for stores like Goodwill where donated goods are vended, and instead wanting goods to go to organizations that prioritize accessibility to essential items. Some of the charities on her list include the Life Haven Shelter, IRIS, and the Women & Family Life Center in Guilford.
Javier Ascencio with his new purchase ...
... of Rockport shoes.
Javier Ascencio, a 21-year-old computer science major at Yale, looked around the shop on a recent visit and found a pair of brown Rockport men’s dress shoes that caught his eye. Pleased after trying the shoes on, he brought them up to the register, saying they’d be perfect with the tweed sport coat he thrifted in Pennsylvania a few months ago.
Ascencio wasn’t always a huge consignment customer. His interest in thrifting and consignment shops has been growing in the past two years as he started finding his sense of style.
“The environment is always good to take care of and I think my tastes tend to be more like what is found at thrift shops and consignment shops,” Ascencio said.
Ascencio encouraged people unfamiliar with consignment shops to try shopping secondhand and see what they could find.
“Sometimes there’s a stigma of used clothing,” Ascencio said, “but you find really nice stuff.”