LINDSAY SCARROW
Thoughtful, clever, empathetic and sweet – these are just a few of the words family and friends used to describe Lindsay Scarrow.
“She has very strong conviction as to how she wants to live and think and love,” said Heidi Munro, Scarrow’s mother.
Scarrow is the owner of Replacing You, a vintage and second hand clothing store in Saskatoon. The shop, established in 2019, was originally run through Instagram, and it expanded in 2023 with a website launch. Now Replacing You operates out of a storefront that opened this past December in Drinkle Mall.
“I was so scared for so long to open a store,” said Scarrow. “And now that I have it… it’s honestly really fun.”
By being organized and prepared, Replacing You has become very legit, said Katie Minnema, Scarrow’s best friend. Minnema described the physical store as a huge development, as the clientele expanded from Saskatoon to places like Vancouver and New York City.
She had a smile on her face when recalling the early days of business, and how the two girls used to have photoshoots in Scarrow’s bedroom with a digital camera. They just had fun trying on pieces from racks of clothes and posting the pictures to the shop’s Instagram, said Minnema.
Scarrow has taken a great leap opening up a storefront, but Replacing You was built off her vision and creativity. She makes her life happen, Munro stated, noting that her daughter finds a way to make anything work.
As a child, Scarrow was described as kind and arts orientated; “She was always the one that had these grand ideas and really started the imaginative play, and everybody got really excited around her,” said Munro.
When discussing her mother’s description, Scarrow laughed and suggested that her character was being embellished, but Munro supported her opinion with facts.
When Scarrow was seven years old, she performed at the Search for the Stars talent contest in Prince Albert, where she’s originally from. She sang ‘Beautiful’ by Christina Aguilera, with the intent to share the song’s message with people.
“She wants people to remember her as someone with integrity and a heart,” said Munro.
Although she expressed creativity as a child, Scarrow acknowledged that there was a good chunk of time where she was detached from it. She had a variety of traditional outlets growing up, such as figure skating, ballet and collaging, but from late high school to a couple years ago, Scarrow said she didn’t nurture her creative side at all.
During that time, she didn’t see the store as something that could be a valid form of creative expression. “I just kind of viewed it as a business and not something that could be played with at all,” said Scarrow.
Now, she expresses creativity through fashion, curation, assembling outfits for models, organizing photoshoots, creating social media content and decorating her store.
Scarrow was able to reconnect with her inner spark; “I think that’s why it’s so fun for me,” she said. “It allows me to be creative.”
However, creativity isn’t her only value, friends and family say she’s also incredibly passionate about sustainability and affordability.
Tia Olsen, a regular model at Replacing You, recalled how she wasn’t interested in the vintage scene until Scarrow was involved and made it more accessible.
“I don’t want anybody to come into my store and feel like they aren’t welcome or they’re not good enough to shop there,” said Scarrow. She intentionally curated an environment that she’d want to shop in, and Minnema backed it up with describing the store as, “So Lindsay.”
“I’ve always been really into second hand shopping,” said Scarrow. “Sometimes it’s not even a conscious thing about sustainability. It’s more of a practical mindset.”
She extends this mindset to Replacing You, as her wholesale inventory is from a supplier in Vancouver. The supplier goes to rag houses, the last stop for clothing items that have been donated by charities, thrift stores or textile mills that are going to be ripped up as rags, hence the name. The supplier digs through piles and piles of clothes to source for Replacing You, and ships off the collection to Scarrow, who finds it to be the most sustainable way to acquire her inventory.
But her efforts for a sustainable community hasn’t stop at the storefront, as Scarrow also hosts Rendezvous Flea, a local vintage market that has pop-ups year round. The market has included a variety of other vendors, local singers, a tattoo artist and often an animal rescue.
Scarrow found that because she didn’t grow up in Saskatoon, she’s developed an extra appreciation for every creative scene and wants to tie them together in a collaborative effort.
Since the pandemic, Scarrow felt like the community lacked a desire to connect with each other. She noted that while locals may imagine a fun, cool life far away from Saskatoon, the community here can fulfill those exact desires. She started Rendezvous Flea in response.
Olsen, who recently started her own candle business called Martini Farm, said that Scarrow offers opportunities to other brands. When Martini Farm launched, Scarrow immediately included Olsen as a vendor for the next Rendezvous Flea; there were no questions asked, she had Scarrow’s full support.
And the actual storefront of Replacing You is a product of Scarrow’s efforts towards community and collaboration.
The store is shared with Resurrected Records, a vintage spot where customers can buy, sell and trade vinyl records. Scarrow had met the owner when they were neighboring vendors at a market. Coincidentally, they were beside each other for a number of following markets and realized that they worked well in a shared space.
In Drinkle Mall, their stores are one large space with an overhead archway to ‘seperate’ them. Scarrow said the two made a deal that if they found a spot that was reasonably priced and could be split between the two, they would take the leap and start a storefront together.
An opportunity had presented itself last October. “We were like, screw it. Let's just do it,” said Scarrow.
Although she considers herself to be a person who panics when the going gets good, Scarrow is quite happy with Replacing You and how far it’s come.
By: K.Levesque
