Video: Thrift Store Shopping Mania

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COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – There’s a catchy song topping the charts right now and it’s all about shopping…thrift store shopping.

Seattle-based rapper Macklemore hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart earlier this month with his smash single “Thrift Shop”. The song details how Macklemore uses the thrift store to get the hottest fashions. The song has been so popular that teens have started to shop in thrift stores looking for great deals.

Dennis Tedford is the Manager at the Palmer Home Thrift Store in Columbus.

“We tend to see, in the most recent couple of weeks, a bigger increase in high school students and college kids that we normally haven’t seen. A lot of the younger generation I think are rediscovering thrift stores,” says Tedford.

Thrift stores carry just about everything from clothes, furniture, and houseware, to music. You name it and they have it but there’s one thing in particular that youngsters are looking for.

“Vintage clothing. Things from the 70s, 80s and 90s. Something that your normally couldn’t get at Belk or even your local mall. Something more edgier,” says Tedford.

Deanna Tutrani, a college student volunteering in the Palmer Home Thrift Store, says she likes the hit song “Thrift Shop” and now understands why her parents shopped at thrift stores.

“Thrift shopping you would hear a lot about from grandparents, parents. When you’re younger you’re not really in to it but when you get to college you’re broke, you have no money and everyone wants cute clothes. You always want a new outfit. So everyone talks about going to the thrift shop. So we’ve actually walked four miles to a thrift shop before,” says Tutrani.

The Palmer Home Thrift Store doesn’t just offer great deals but it’s a non-profit organization that serves disadvantage youth as well as the community.

“We keep it very affordable because we know that families are on budgets. I mean, where else can you come in and get Louis Vuitton that’s real. We have a lot of name brands that you want to give your kids that you normally couldn’t afford,” says Tedford.

The Palmer Home Thrift Stores process over 70,000 pounds of clothing donations per year.

So the next time you want to look like you just stepped off the runway, visit a local thrift store.