Dina Younis: Repurpose Driven

Dina Younis beelines for a floral puffy coat. She’s browsing the Village Discount Outlet’s coat aisle on a Thursday morning in September when she spots the flowery number. 

“I saw it from a mile away. Ah, this is killing me!” says the Akron-based thrift blogger with a lighthearted laugh. “I need to grab a cart.”

In the coat aisle alone, she bounces from rack to rack using her hand to check for tactile quality and her eagle eye to spot stylish pieces. A furry neutral plaid Loft coat. A quilted orange zip-up. A coral Mrs. Claus-esque jacket with white shearling cuffs.

She picks out a burnt orange zipper-trimmed Old Navy coat and enthusiastically discovers the tags are still on.

“I didn’t know that had the tag on it, but I could just tell it was a nice coat from the color and feel,” says the 34-year-old. “I love the color for fall.”

Younis makes thrifting uber-cool on her Dina’s Days blog and has an Instagram that unfolds like an effervescent fashion magazine for her 13,600-plus followers. In her world, vibrant color is everywhere, thrifting is a way of life and bold prints are staples. The internet has taken notice of her enviable secondhand finds. BuzzFeed and online resale shop ThredUp named her among 21 top thrift bloggers.

The treasures she unburies are in thrift stores of The 330, and she shares tips to encourage readers to join her on the hunt. When it comes to shoe shopping at Village, she checks the soles first because she only buys brand-new kicks.

A pair of tan suede crisscross-strap slides catches her glance, but she flips them over and the soles are scuffed — that’s a pass.

A black leather pair of Nine West heels, however, aces the sole test. They appear unworn and get extra points for being marked down to $4. “Those are so cute for work,” Younis says with a wide smile.

Bargain shopping is all Younis knew growing up in Amman, Jordan, in the 1990s. As the youngest of three girls, she was used to hand-me-downs, so wearing previously used clothes felt natural. But in Amman, the options for thrifting were limited to one store: Clothing Warehouse. When Younis was a preteen, she asked her mom to take her there. Younis saved up her allowance — 13 Jordanian dinar, about $18 U.S. — for clothes that resembled the pieces she circled in the Delia’s catalog her cousin mailed to her from America. At the warehouse, she uncovered platform sneakers that looked like they were straight out of her coveted catalog.

“I was so excited I was able to replicate what I saw,” she says.

When she moved to Akron as a teen in 1998, her dad took her to Village Discount Outlet, where she really got immersed in the world of thrifting. While her sisters sighed at the thought of shopping secondhand, Younis was blown away by the vast selection. She would spend her paychecks from washing dishes part time. With that small budget, Younis got creative at finding ways to reinvent pieces, like dyeing a tan coat with purple Rit dye.

“I loved the recycling aspect,” she says. “It’s breathing new life into something old.”

While Younis cherished thrifting in middle and high school, she didn’t share her passion with others. It seemed there was a stigma about buying secondhand clothes.

“It was taboo for awhile to talk about it,” she says. “There was always the mentality that if you shopped at thrift stores you were poor.”

Despite the stigma, Younis never felt ashamed. Rather she felt proud of the deals she scored and purchased nearly 95 percent of her wardrobe secondhand.

An encounter at Younis’ first job out of college made her realize people were curious about her striking style. Her co-worker asked, How do you have cool clothes on our paychecks? Younis said she thrifted, and her co-worker excitedly exclaimed that she did too and would have never guessed Younis did. Younis realized other people might want to know how she did it, and she thought creating on ongoing discussion about great secondhand steals could be helpful. So she started her blog, Dina’s Days, in 2009 — before there were many thrift blogs — to show how satisfying and stylish thrifting can be for everyone.

“I wanted to change that narrative and get people excited about it,” she says. “I don’t care what kind of background you come from. Everybody loves a bargain.”

Much of what draws in her thousands of followers is her colorful, bold, playful style. A pink and yellow-striped maxi dress. Lemon-printed leggings. A yellow trench coat and magenta fedora.

She’s always had the confidence to rock eye-catching fashion. As a child, Younis toted around a fuchsia backpack and layered neon green and pink socks over one another. But since having her daughter, Jeneen, with her guitarist husband, Dan Wilson, Younis has had to adjust to her postpartum body and lifestyle. She gravitates toward flowy blouses, kimonos and relaxed boyfriend jeans but still keeps her overall vivacious look.

“I can still wear a lot of color and prints, but they have to be uncomplicated like this,” she says gesturing to her loose diagonal-striped dress, mustard sling bag and denim slide sandals.

Being a new mom means she has to be intentional with her thrifting, shopping on lunch break power trips or on weekends with Jeneen, whom she hopes will catch the thrifting bug.

“I want her to grow up in thrift stores the way I did,” Younis says.

She wants that for everyone, so Younis partners with Goodwill Akron and Goodwill Greater Cleveland for initiatives like her 12 Months of Thrifting challenge with a new essential to buy each month to help thrifters build a practical wardrobe. And for those who are intimidated by traditional thrifting, Younis stocks her thrifting pop-up Spice Rack with curated items — think floral rompers, strappy metallic heels and furry vests — for sale three to four times a year in Blue: A Goodwill Boutique in downtown Akron. These efforts help demystify thrifting.

“The more we talk about thrifting and taking that stigma away from thrifting, [the more] it blends into that message of recycling and reuse,” says Janet Morrison, vice president of operations and logistics for Goodwill Akron.

Now, Younis is part of a community of thrift bloggers helping to turn up the conversation on thrifting, and as the followers tick up, more shoppers try it out. Recently, Younis took 20 budding thrifters on a Thrift Day Out where she shared tips and browsed with the shoppers, half of whom had never been thrifting. Maybe they’ll make thrifting a lifestyle, too, or at least open their minds to the possibility of thrifting.

“You don’t have to feel embarrassed or bad about it,” Younis says. “You should be proud that you’re able to find these things at a fraction of the price and still look great.”