GOING to your local thrift store can be an affordable, unique, and environmentally friendly way to shop.

However, it’s not always an easy task to find size-inclusive clothing.

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Alysse Dalessandro, a plus-size fashion blogger and founder of Secondhand Stare spoke exclusively to The U.S. Sun about thrifting as a curvy woman.

“I have always had an interest in fashion, particularly in secondhand fashion, because being a plus-sized person, it was very hard to find clothing in my style and my size,” she explained.

The 36-year-old recalled the “matronly” options that were available for young people with her body growing up.

“It just didn’t feel current so I started thrifting at a very young age, in middle school,” Alysse said.

She joked that her mom’s job at Nordstrom meant she was not big into thrifting, but nevertheless helped her to develop her “own personal style.”

“[She] was super supportive, she sent me to sewing classes and I was able to DIY what I couldn’t find in stores,” Alysse explained.

During her college years in Chicago, the Ohio native dipped her toe into the fashion world.

“In my senior year of college, I was working at a magazine and [my co-workers and I] said ‘We want to start our own magazine, how should we fund it?’ and so started a secondhand store,” she said.

The vintage pop-up shop became so popular in Chicago that the trio never founded the magazine.

“The store was pretty popular for the next three to four years,” Alysse said.

After her business partners moved away, she made the decision to focus on the handmade jewelry and accessories part of the company, which eventually led to her career as an influencer.

“At that point, body positivity was really growing and so by naturally marketing my own products and going on my own body love journey online, I became an influencer,” she shared.

“I focused completely on being an influencer but I missed that aspect of selling clothes and of helping people with their personal style.

“So in 2023, I opened Secondhand Stare.”

And while Alysse has focused on size inclusivity with her latest venture, she noticed a similar switch-up in other vintage outlets.

“I think thrifting has changed over the years as well, which has, has been a nice shift,” the business owner said.

One of her main pieces of advice to curvy fashion fans hoping to pick up something secondhand is to look for stores that welcome all body shapes.

“I love to look for thrift stores that separate their plus-size clothing, and a lot of them do that,” she said.

“It used to be that they only had tags that went up to an XL and so you just had to go to the XL section, and then hope that the [bigger] sizes just were at the end.

“But now I find that a lot of them have separate sections for plus-sizes.

“One big misconception the fashion industry has is they think that we don’t want to be singled out, we don’t want a plus section, we just shop alongside everybody else.

“And that’s true but until you have every single item available in every single size, I don’t want to shop and look through a bunch of clothes that aren’t available in my size.”

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Alysse explained that she would rather thrift stores have clearly defined sections, to save plus-size people the frustration of looking through clothes that aren’t going to fit.

“One I feel more included and two, it’s easier,” she said.

“Who wants to go through racks and racks and racks of clothes that won’t fit them?”

Alysse incorporated this simple concept into her own brand by sectioning SecondHand Stare into sizes.

“So my number one thing when I created the website was that you can shop by your size, so you’re only able to look at things that are going to fit,” she explained.

She also pointed out that her experience thrifting taught her that she didn’t have to strictly shop in the women’s section.

“I learned that clothing really has no gender, so I’d shop in the men’s section of the thrift store,” she said.

And perhaps one of the most useful lessons Alysse learned through thrifting was that she could be more creative with her buys.

“If you’re not spending very much on it, then you can experiment more,” she explained.

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