Today we’d like to introduce you to Alisha Arguello
Alisha, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My journey began with a quirky passion for rehoming items found on the side of the road, treasure hunting at garage & estate sales with my mom and Grams & refinishing furniture to help pay for college. I’ve always loved attending estate sales and wished the furniture could talk to me. I have always gravitated toward luxury clothing and couldn’t help but have an expensive eye. I loved vintage beaded clothing as a young girl and got laughed at for daring to wear such things to school in the 90s. (I laugh so hard at that now.) Through the years, I’ve always loved treasure hunting and helping my friends and family off-load stuff they no longer loved which fueled my desire to learn more and grow in this area.
Over the years, I’ve worked as a marketing director, an administrative assistant, a server and bartender, a constituent advocate, delivered newspapers and am a farmer’s daughter who sold at farmers markets since I was little. During all of these jobs, I was always treasure hunting and curating – if friends or family were looking for something, I would let them know if I found it out in the wild. This is something that comes natural to me.
In 2020 when the pandemic happened, my fiance at the time said he may have found my dream job. It hadn’t even occurred to me to look for a consignment or thrift business…I did this type of stuff naturally on the side because I love it. He heard that a shop in Rochester was for sale and looked into it. Before I knew it we were keys in hand of a brick and mortar consignment store during a pandemic…
The former owner had moved the shop to a smaller space with the mindset to focus more on clothing and be a boutique. That was pre-covid. When we got it – no one was leaving their homes nor caring about clothes so we had to pivot real fast. Thankfully we had storage units behind our storefront at the time so we made a makeshift store of used furniture and decor in the back. It felt kind of sketchy – like – hey “if you want to see more tables and stuff we can take you out back”. It was like a used furniture speakeasy. It caused me so much stress because I was worried about people slipping/falling/tripping/lawsuits. Thankfully none of that happened.
The pivot to add in a lot of furniture & decor helped us to be able to move locations to where we are today. Refashion currently is 5,200 sq ft of both pre-owned clothing & furniture & 4 years later we turn a lot of both!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As a seller of used goods it can be very overwhelming where everyone wants to sell with us but the shopping side isn’t happening. We struggled a bit the first few years with having an overwhelming demand of people wanting to sell with us. We would have easily 50 people a day dropping off car loads and we would have to turn away so much. This still breaks my heart because I do want to sell everything for every one. I only have so much space and have gotten better at knowing which shops around us are good at selling what so now I direct people to where their items could do better at, and we are constantly trying to things, staging unique vignettes for time periods, and we focus heavily on social media to show goods to get them sold.
We also offer home clean out and decluttering services and since 2023 do real-estate as well, so not only can we help you sell all your things, we can help sell your home too.
Antiques are not selling like they used to – so I have to let a lot of people down in that way. I am honest and will say what our shop will most likely get but they see what people have things listed for on ebay and think that is what it will sell for – but just because someone has something listed for $1000. it doesn’t mean our market will pay that.
We are consistently building a community that love supporting pre-owned shopping & re-using. Refashion is now a strong community that I am so genuinely proud of.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Full estate services shop including a luxury consignment shop with a 5,200 square foot show-room!
We’re know in the Rochester, MN area for where you can get quality pre-owned furniture, art, home decor, & VTG Gucci, YSL, clothing, Louis Vuitton bags, funky jewelry, and so much more! We offer Real Estate Services, traditional in-home estate sales, home clean-outs & decluttering services.
We offer free home visits to help you access what should be consigned and where. If an estate sale is worth it for you if you need one.
We have a lot of fun showing off people’s consignment on our social media. We aim to make sustainable shopping and recycling fun! Find us at RefashionMN on Instagram & TikTok and RefashionRochester on Facebook.
How do you think about happiness?
Talking about possibilities and dreams and goals – I love the energy and zest that comes from thinking about what if possibilities! I’m such a dreamer & a visionary.
animals- goats specifically jumping around all happy – that always makes me happy. Some day I’ll have a herd. 😉
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.refashion.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/refashionmn
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/refashionrochester/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@refashionMN
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@refashionmn
