Thanks to Clothesline Laundromat, Fraidy Cats, and Lindsay Bjerke with Norton Realty for their support.
A new secondhand clothing boutique, Soul aWear Circular Fashion, opened this week in West St. Paul.
“We make reuse really fun and enjoyable, make it feel a little more elevated, and just make it easier to choose sustainably,” said owner Krystell Theisen Escobar, who also owns kids clothing reseller Eco Chico in West St. Paul.
What: Soul aWear offers “carefully curated adult fashions for men and women that enhance your style with soul while healing our planet and connecting our community.”
- Pricing: Look for pricing ranging from $4.50 to $24.50, which amounts to 70% off retail. “We are not going to exercise the vintage inflation tax here,” Theisen Escobar said. “We’re going to keep those treasures very accessible.”
- Stylists: Soul aWear will have a collective of stylists that can help shoppers find pieces that work for them, learn how to put outfits together, and boost confidence. These stylists also offer additional freelance services to help with personal shopping, curating looks, and more.
- Repairs: Like Eco Chico, Soul aWear will offer free minor repairs. “We’re definitely going to let people interact with the repair process,” said Theisen Escobar. “So that, especially younger people, can really understand how to repair their garments and keep things in circulation and avoid throwing things until they’re actually really done.”
- Clothing donations: They accept drop-off donations, giving $15 in store credit for a grocery bag worth of clothes. Store credit can be used at Soul aWear or Eco Chico and gifted or donated. “The vision is to gather and keep resources in our community,” Theisen Escobar said. “It’s giving and receiving at the same time.”
- Try it: Soul aWear has comfortable changing rooms, something lacking in the corporate second hand shops in town.
- Events: Soul aWear hopes to offer events in the future, including clothing swaps and mending events.
When: Soul aWear had a preview event last week and officially opened Tuesday, February 17 with a soft opening. They’ll have limited hours at the start, open Tuesday through Saturday from 1-5 p.m. They expect to have a grand opening in March after new windows and a door are installed.
Where: The shop is located on Smith Avenue near Annapolis, next to Amore Coffee.
- Location: “When I saw it, I just got obsessed with it,” Theisen Escobar said. “I couldn’t pass it up. It’s my dream location.”
- Neighbors: Not only is it creating a secondhand hub with Centsibly Chic next door and West St. Paul Antiques across the street, but every business in the building is owned by women.
- Community: “We love West St. Paul,” Theisen Escobar said. “It is our community that has given us so much. This is who we want to do it for.”
The community is already turning out and the location is working. Multiple shoppers wandered into the store during our interview on Monday afternoon, before Soul aWear even opened.
“We’ve seen tons of interest from our Eco Chico moms about a place for them,” said Theisen Escobar, “and for being able to do more secondhand and do more reuse as a part of everyday living, but have it be a more fun experience.”
The Power of Reuse
Sustainability is on the rise. Secondhand apparel is now a $61 billion industry, up from $27 billion in 2020, and 58% of consumers shopped secondhand apparel in 2024, an all-time high, according to the 2025 Resale Report from ThredUp.
- The vibe: “Reuse is a super viable way to enjoy good quality life and enjoy style, enjoy creating your own unique image,” Theisen Escobar said, “But doing it through more conscious buying and also through sharing with the community.”
- The kids get it: Nearly half of younger generations shop secondhand first, according to that ThredUp report. It fits their environmental ethos and their pocketbooks: “We’re seeing our Eco Chico kids that have grown out of Eco Chico, and we’re seeing tweens, teens, they do want to shop on their own, have independence,” said Theisen Escobar. “They are excited about reuse and secondhand and they understand the why behind it on many levels. They understand some of the problems with fast fashion.”
- The real thing: But for Soul aWear, reuse is in their DNA. It’s a practice in the shop, with their fixtures upcycled or donated. It’s how owner Theisen Escobar spends her time, serving on the board of Reuse Minnesota working to promote reuse on a broader scale.
Upcycled Community
More than just a trend, Theisen Escobar sees the rise of resale and reuse as rooted in community, another changing trend in recent years.
- COVID: “I think we all confronted our stuff and how much stuff we have very directly during the COVID time,” she said. “We’re realizing we don’t actually need that much stuff. The material stuff we have is fine, but it’s not where we get our satisfaction.” That pandemic time of reassessing resulted in an outpouring of mutual support with people sharing and supporting their neighbors.
- ICE: That’s happening again with the recent increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity. “It’s kind of a risky time to set up a new shop,” Theisen Escobar said. “[But] we have seen people step up and speak out and react to all these things that have happened in the state. I do really think that people care and want to understand each other. … People do want to be good neighbors. People do want more friendship and connection.”
- Sharing: That community results in people helping one another, whether it’s mutual aid during the pandemic or food distribution during Operation Metro Surge. “Everywhere you look, people are sharing and giving more than ever,” said Theisen Escobar. “They’re realizing they just don’t need as much stuff. They’d rather share more. And that makes me so hopeful.”
With Soul aWear and Eco Chico, Theisen Escobar sees resale clothing as a way to share resources, keep value in the community, and reenvision fashion with creativity and sustainability instead of over-indulgence and waste.
“I think those times that are really challenging and testing can make us open to new concepts, new ways of doing things,” she said. “It’s the perfect time after what has happened to have just another way to be more in community.”
The Creativity of Immigrants
That community and creativity are at the heart of the reuse movement. Theisen Escobar sees creativity in West St. Paul and the immigrant experience.
- In our blood: “Honestly, I love that about West St. Paul, but I also love that about being an immigrant,” she said. “You make things work. We fix things, we stretch the life of things. We definitely believe in upcycling like nobody’s business. I mean, it’s in our blood, in our core.”
- Thanks mom: Theisen Escobar credits her mother, who grew up making her own clothes, as a model for that kind of creative reuse.
- Make them more: “That’s one thing about my immigrant identity that I bring to life here,” she said. “We fix stuff. We find ways to repair high quality, beautiful garments that are being regularly tossed and thrown. We’re repairing them and finding creative ways to get them back and maybe even add to their style, maybe even make them more current.”
- Grant funding: As an example of that ingenuity, Soul aWear landed a waste reduction grant from Dakota County that will fund an upgraded sewing machine so they can do more repairs.
A Hub for Secondhand
Theisen Escobar sees secondhand merchandise as a viable sector that could put West St. Paul on the map.
“I strongly believe that a strategic approach to creating a real commercial destination out of West St. Paul is to lean heavily on vintage, secondhand antique, thrift as an actual traffic creator that is unique and stands out among the suburbs of the Twin Cities,” she said. “It would actually bring people from outside the neighborhood to want to come shop and eat here in West St. Paul.”
- A start: In addition to the corporate shops with Goodwill and Savers, there’s also CRAFT Thrift Store, Eco Chico, and the aforementioned Centsibly Chic and West St. Paul Antiques.
- Building blocks: “West St. Paul could grab this and run with it and have great success,” she said. “You have all the things to make resale happen: You have old buildings with cheap rent. You have lots of parking. You have that really diverse and working class people that are trying to move toward more economic stability. The alignment is just so good.”
- City help: There’s more the city could do to encourage the trend, though Theisen Escobar has already started. Last month she successfully lobbied the West St. Paul City Council to reduce the license fee for secondhand goods stores from $300 to $25.
- Welcoming competition: Theisen Escobar sees a thriving sector as good for everyone and not as competition. “I would love to see others come too, others in this space that have really creative and innovative concepts,” she said.
- A destination: “It’s going to bring people in from everywhere,” said Theisen Escobar. “You’re going to actually have people from Woodbury and Eagan coming here to do their shopping, versus people of West St. Paul preferring to go shopping in Eagan and Woodbury.”
That thriving hub starts with the continued success of the existing shops, and now Soul aWear as well.
“Obviously, I believe in it, so much as to put all of my own personal energy into it,” Theisen Escobar said. “And I hope the community will continue to support it.”
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