Have you, as a Canadian, ever wondered what an outsider’s perspective on Vancouver is like? Today, I, a Brazilian, will share my perspective on what Vancouver’s culture is for me.

If you’ve been living in Vancouver for a while, you start to notice, both in your daily life and in conversations you have, that thrifting here isn’t just about buying used items, but is actually a culture, almost a local sport! It’s very competitive!

I find it impressive and beautiful how the city has embraced thrift stores so naturally, as if it were part of our nature since the start. Thrifting is a new language, a way to connect, and find yourself as you search through other people’s stories through their belongings, their clothes. 

What many people think thrifting is is buying old and used things. I dare say that most still think that way today, and I have to confess here, until I came to live in Vancouver, I thought the same thing. But here I started going into a thrift store here, then a thrift store there, and that’s how I began to understand the power of these places. It’s like entering a parallel world; you can travel to another era. These spaces carry history, they carry feeling.

I consider Vancouver a city of constant change; it’s always in motion. Many people arriving, many people leaving, and with so many changes, these objects left in thrift stores begin to gain new and new life cycles, learning the stories of the people who left their belonging and becoming part of the stories of people who find it.

(PublicDomainPictures/Pixabay)

It took me a long time to buy something from a thrift store for the first time. It’s the kind of place where you need patience, something I often don’t have, but it takes patience to find things you never even imagined. During this summer, a friend found an analog camera in one of these thrift stores, decided to buy it just to test it out, and that’s where the most fun and story-filled photos of our summer came from. It’s definitely worth a try.

Not to mention the sustainability, which is a very important factor in Vancouver.

So no, thrifting isn’t just about looking at things left behind and cheap. Thrifting is an identity, it’s someone’s story. Each object is a piece of belonging.