By Virginia M. Wright
Photos by Hannah Hoggatt
From our September 2024 issue
Jess Stuart is a self-confessed “over-buyer.” Her wardrobe recently included more than 250 pairs of jeans. Josey Bornstein, by contrast, has sworn off purchasing new apparel on account of the environmental damage wreaked by billions of pounds of clothing discarded in the U.S. each year. Yet this consumer and this conserver have found common ground: they’re partners in a new venture they’re billing as “Bangor’s rebellion on fast fashion and inflation.”
Their consignment boutique, Cool Girl Collective, embodies both Stuart’s love of clothes and Bornstein’s resolve to reduce textile waste. Housed in Stuart’s spray-tan salon, Glowgetters, on the second floor of the 1900s-era Union Plaza building, the shop is rooted in Stuart’s frustrated attempts to winnow her jeans. She found selling them through online marketplaces required more effort than a used pair of jeans is worth. Brick-and-mortar shops, meanwhile, were highly selective in their vetting of the brands and styles they’d put on the sales floor. Cool Girl Collective sets itself apart by giving consignors more control over inventory and a bigger share of the profits, a model its founders say results in a novel shopping experience and lower prices.
Cool Girl Collective’s vendors can sell whatever they like in booths they rent for $30 a week, and they pay the store 30 percent of their profits, instead of the usual 50 to 60 percent. Customers tend to zero in on sellers who share their taste and size, a more streamlined way to shop than the hunting and pecking required when consignors’ goods are pooled and then organized on racks by garment type. “This is thrifting for people who don’t like thrifting,” Stuart says.
When the shop opened in April, it occupied one small room. Now, 15 weekly booths, plus collections from permanent sellers like Brewer social-media influencer Rylee Jade, whose clothing-brand collaborators send her more merchandise than she can ever wear, are spread over four rooms, which sparkle with neon signs, string lights, and disco balls. Every Sunday brings a change in vendors, and on Fridays, the sellers discount their remaining wares by 10 to 50 percent. Anything that doesn’t sell can be donated to the central room’s“rebellion rack” of heavily marked-down goods. In the adjoining “trendy room” are Stuart’s surplus jeans and Harley-Davidson tees and Bornstein’s line of bags and clothing made from rebellion-rack leftovers.
Rare is the shopper who leaves Cool Girl Collective empty-handed, the partners say, adding that they’re among their own best customers. “This is the best-dressed I’ve ever been,” Bornstein says. As for Stuart, she’s taken home other sellers’ Harley tees — “and, believe it or not, jeans.”
4 Union St., Bangor. 207-573-0289.
