Why I Started Thrifting — From Survival to Storytelling in Secondhand Dresses

Today, while my daughter napped on my shoulder, I found myself thinking about beginnings. Not the cinematic kind, but the quiet ones.
The kind that happen while you’re holding a sleeping child and remembering a different version of yourself.

When I left the high control religion I was born into, I didn’t leave with much. There wasn’t some dramatic midnight escape. It was slower than that. Quieter.
A gradual untethering. A choosing of something else, one small decision at a time.

But what I did leave behind was almost everything — clothing, belongings, a sense of certainty.
I was rebuilding a life from near-zero.
And that meant almost everything I owned was secondhand.

My first apartment was filled with furniture picked up from the side of the road or from Freecycle, dishes from yard sales.
I wore clothes that friends had outgrown or that I found for a few dollars at the thrift store.

When I started dating my now-husband, his mother would bring me dishes she’d found at yard sales.
She didn’t say much about it — just pressed them into my hands, like little offerings.
A way of saying you deserve nice things, without having to say it out loud.

At first, thrifting was about survival.
It was what I could afford. It was the way I learned to make do.

But somewhere along the way, it became more than that.

It became a form of expression.
A slow art.
A way to feel at home in my body again, piece by piece.

Eventually, I began to see beauty in the small mismatches.
In the layers of other people’s stories.
I learned to trust my eye.
I began to collect not just to survive, but to belong.

Even today, my favorite dress is a vintage find from the 70s that I discovered in those more desperate times. Almost 20 years later, I still use kitchen wares my mother-in-law thrifted for me during those survival days.

And over time, that lifeline became a joy.
An aesthetic.
A business.
A practice in noticing.

Lee & Lillian’s may look like a vintage shop from the outside.
But really, it’s a love letter to that quiet beginning.
To the young woman who made a home out of scraps.
Who found her footing in old wool coats and floral prints.
Who didn’t have much — but had a feeling that she could start again.

And did.

If you’ve ever started again with almost nothing — if you’ve ever made something beautiful from the secondhand, the left behind, the nearly forgotten — I see you.
This little shop is stitched together from those beginnings.

Thank you for being here.

Lee & Lillian’s grew out of these years—one slow, story-filled dress at a time. If this story resonates—if you’ve ever found yourself rebuilding from small beginnings, or found beauty tucked inside a secondhand dress—you’re always welcome to browse the shop 🌸