Down on Merchant’s Row in Rutland you’ll find several thrift stores. Wedged between Bougie on a Budget and Camille’s a new vintage spot has opened up by the name of Krusted Gold.   

Entering the store, you’ll be met with an old arcade game, the register and a friendly face named Alex Wade, the co-executive director of the store. 

Further in the store, you’ll see a few rows of leather jackets and vintage tee-shirts hung on racks followed by many tables piled high with clothing that customers can rummage through.   

It’s simple, the clothes on the rack are priced individually, and the ones on the table can be purchased for three dollars per pound. Nothing exceeds the cost of $30 and most items on the racks are below $15.   

“Honestly, I’d say the atmosphere is weird! When you walk in it’s not how you’d expect a thrift to be. The clothes aren’t neatly folded and hanging up, they’re mostly just piled on tables. There’s not much order. The more pricey products are hung up and displayed. But I actually think the way they do it is fun! It’s like a little scavenger hunt to find the ‘gold,’ said VTSU Castleton student Hadley Swainbank.   

There’s a TV stand in the back by the stage where cartoons like Scooby Doo or Powder Puff Girls are displayed on screen with a stylish semi-circle sectional couch up front.   

Anthony Patorti is the other co-executive director who currently resides in New York City and comes up twice a month to tend to the store for a week at a time. When Patorti isn’t here, it’s Wade who holds down the fort.   

The pair met around 10 years ago when Wade got a tattoo done by Patorti.   

“A lot of his body’s covered in tattoos done by me,” noted Patorti.   

It was around two years ago when they started getting into the resell world and from there, they decided to make donation bins to put out into the community of Rutland.   

“And this is what’s happened,” Patorti said, gesturing around the unique vintage space.  

Krusted Gold is different from other second-hand stores and doesn’t add to the textile mountain, they said.  

The textile mountain refers to the massive piles of discarded clothing, often ending up in landfills and waterways in the Global South, as a result of the fast-fashion industry and the second-hand clothing trade.  

“It’s really just focusing on the ethics and morality of this all, which a lot of major textile distributing does not take into account,” Wade said.   

Krusted Gold has taken the necessary steps to ensure that the clothes being donated don’t end up in the landfills and oceans.   

“I am a forest and wildlife conservation major, so a business that is environmentally aware is one I love supporting,” Swainbank said.   

“Most of their clothes aren’t priced so they don’t use tags made of paper or plastic. The clothes that are priced just have a small piece of tape on their hangers which is so different. Other thrifts like goodwill tag everything, which adds up to be a lot of plastic,” continued Swainbank.   

There’s a stage in the back of the store that was used for the opening show of Krusted Gold. The band Honey opened followed by Tyler Serrani.  

For the opening night, people were able to listen to live music then peruse the piles of vintage clothing. Although Wade and Patorti are focused on growing their re-use project, future shows are definitely not out of the question.   

Patorti takes inspiration from his home in NYC.   

“You can walk down that street at noon and its clothing stores all over the place and then right at eight o’clock, they have a speakeasy and some sort of event going on in there. A DJ, a drag show, a burlesque show,” said Patorti.   

The duo plans on having the band Honey come back for more shows, about every six weeks.   

Also, around the six-week mark they will replace their tables with different clothing, so it’s not the same clothes sitting on the tables for months at a time.   

The vibe of the store is creating a low-key place to shop, but also enjoy a show or two.   

“That’s kind of been the vibe of our whole project is to be very grassroot-y and word of mouth,” Wade said.   

Their goal is to “hook some people up with a cool shirt or something,” commented Patorti. Another huge part of their message is to become an “ethical thrift powerhouse” and to be accessible to the community.   

Being environmentally conscious should not have to break the bank and Swainbank agrees.   

“Many environmentally aware companies are really expensive to support. It can be costly to protect the environment. Krusted Gold is doing it in a sustainable way that is easily accessible to all people since it’s cheap,” she said.   

Shopping at a place like this is great and donating is also just as effective. Especially for college students in the season of spring cleaning. Even if fast fashion clothes are being donated, Krusted Gold ensures that these articles are still being put to use and recycled properly. Just because a clothing piece isn’t wearable, doesn’t mean it has lost its value.   

“The bottom line is we have to do every little thing to take care of our earth even if it’s something as small as getting your clothes second hand or donating your clothes it does make a huge difference and we all need to be doing it,” said student and Krusted Gold customer Aspen Wood.