There are several reasons why thrifting has outlasted most trends — 2,992 reasons in a lucky shopper's find recently profiled by Business Insider.
Kristen Boelen founded Lunch Break Vintage, and her secondhand score showed that even seasoned thrifters can hit it big on a thrifting excursion.
"I have been thrifting since the moment I could drive," Boelen said, explaining it as a way to obtain "higher-end" items at a price she could afford.
Her love of thrifting quickly escalated to curation, and she began selling some of her finds on the social marketplace Whatnot. Eventually, that led to the creation of Lunch Break Vintage in February 2025, so named because she used her workday lunch breaks to scour thrift stores.
One of the draws for secondhand shoppers is the thrill of the hunt, as thrift stores carry in-demand discontinued items, high-quality vintage goods, and one-of-a-kind buys.
Thrifting has become far more popular in recent years, partly due to inflation and partly because many young shoppers have grown weary of disposable fast fashion garments.
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Shopping secondhand saves shoppers serious money. According to Capital One Shopping, dedicated thrifters like Boelen save an average of $2,071 each year just by thrifting.
On top of that, secondhand shopping keeps perfectly good items out of landfills, reducing both demand for new merchandise and the high emissions associated with textile waste.
Spending less and reducing environmental impacts are truly fantastic reasons to start hitting up thrift stores, but Boelen's shocking find was perhaps a stronger lure for prospective thrifters.
It was "a normal Wednesday," she said, and two "woven leather" bags instantly captured Boelen's interest. She wasn't expecting a huge score, though, having seen endless Bottega Veneta knockoffs.
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"There are so many Bottega Veneta dupes. I didn't really think much about it, just that one of them looked exceptionally nice," Boelen recalled.
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$200 or more 💰 On closer inspection, the thrift store proprietor noticed details like the hardware and the bag's heft before she spotted a Bottega Veneta logo and realized she was holding the real thing.
Still, unauthorized reproductions can be convincing. She used Google Lens to authenticate it on the fly and found that it was worth $3,000.
"There's a video of me going, 'Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,' once I figured out where the serial tag was. I got out of there as quickly as possible, paying $8 for the bag," Boelen said, adding that she planned to keep the lucky score for herself rather than reselling it.
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