Twelve years after opening a small townhouse shop in Vancouver, Mine & Yours has grown into one of Canada’s best known destinations for authenticated designer resale. The business marks its twelfth birthday this month with a national celebration and a headline giveaway, a 2019 Hermès M8 Gris Asphalte Taurillon Novillo Leather Birkin 30 with gold hardware valued at $28,500. For founder Courtney Watkins, the anniversary is less a finish line and more a checkpoint in a market that has moved from the margins to the mainstream.
“It kind of feels like an explosion of resale,” she said in a recent conversation with Retail Insider. “When I look back, it just feels like a snowball. Year after year it has been slowly gaining momentum. The momentum is picking up pace, and every year it is a little more popular, with more economic groups open to shopping secondhand.”
What once felt niche is now part of the fashion conversation. “Even in the fashion magazines and the business reports I follow, every fifth article is about resale,” Watkins said. That shift has encouraged Mine & Yours to refine its positioning and expand its footprint while staying true to a buy, sell, trade model that prizes access, authenticity, and community.
From townhouse to Yorkville and Yaletown
Founded in 2013, Mine & Yours began as a 300 square foot experiment in curated secondhand fashion inspired by the circular economy. The company has since operated prominent Vancouver boutiques, including Yaletown at 418 Davie Street and a Kitsilano shop on West 4th Avenue. Its original downtown space on Howe Street closed in June 2024 due to safety concerns, a setback that sharpened the brand’s focus on neighbourhoods that support high quality retail experiences and strong community ties. In Toronto, the company established a Yorkville flagship and, in July 2025, launched a pop up at The Well to reach a wider urban audience with frequent product drops and a mix that includes handbags under one thousand dollars.
“We used to be a townhouse, you really had to know about us and we did not do any marketing,” Watkins said. “Now we are on Yorkville and right in Yaletown, in high traffic areas. The word gets out much quicker.”
That evolution mirrors the rise of Mine & Yours luxury resale as a recognized part of the shopping journey for many Canadians. The brand remains privately held and women owned, with a team that champions sustainability and personal style. It continues to test new markets with activations, including a Holt Renfrew pop up in Calgary that extended through the summer before closing in August. “We definitely found success with Calgary,” Watkins said. “The plan is to go back out, we will be back in 2026 and I imagine it will be with Holt Renfrew.”
Customers who will not buy new
The stigma around secondhand has faded, especially among younger shoppers. “There are more younger clients who will not buy new,” Watkins said. “Older, more affluent clients are still shopping brand new a lot, but they are now open to shopping secondhand as well.”
That openness spans the spectrum, from thrifting at Value Village to a luxury resale boutique experience with white glove service. “Stores like mine are more luxury, and that is one of the reasons it is getting more popular with the affluent customer,” she said. “They can come into a store and have a really high end shopping experience, which did not exist twelve years ago. I was trying to find it.”
The Gen Z cohort still enjoys the hunt, but now treats resale as a first choice rather than a fallback. “I hear from our clients that their kids will not wear things new,” Watkins noted. “They are very proud to shop secondhand.”
How the product mix climbed the ladder
As the customer evolved, the assortment evolved. “I was as luxury as I could be,” Watkins said of the early years. “It was about the supply I could get in. We would have one or two Chanel bags and be excited about that, with a lot of mid contemporary clothing at the fifty to seventy five dollar price point. I remember our first Birkin. I got two and it took me over a year to sell one.”
Today, the store’s mix is decidedly higher end and turns faster. “Now we sell Birkins all the time,” she said. “We do not take Aritzia anymore, and we do not do that fifty to seventy five dollar price point, although we still have some items around seventy five dollars. Many of our dresses are more like the one hundred to one hundred fifty dollar bottom price range. You go into Zara and a dress is one hundred fifty dollars, so part of that is inflation.”
Mine & Yours luxury resale also continued to deepen its selection of investment pieces from brands such as Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Hermès and Gucci, alongside contemporary ready to wear, jewellery, and accessories. The company guarantees authenticity and refreshes inventory frequently to encourage discovery in store and online.
Supply, store credit, and the one bag out rule
A defining feature of the business is the buy, sell, trade counter that sits within sight of a wall of handbags. The layout is intentional, and it shapes behaviour. “What we see a lot more of is our suppliers shopping with us,” Watkins said. “We offer store credit, and we have a beautiful bag wall next to the buying area. Someone will come in with a large closet purge, then they hang out in the store and ask about a bag. They realize they can trade and walk out with one piece they really love.”
The approach encourages circularity without sacrificing aspiration. “It is often a large closet purge in for one or two bags,” she said. “They still purge a lot of their stuff, they might have fifty items out and one item in, usually a handbag that elevates the wardrobe.”
The Birkin conundrum and why resale wins
Nothing captures the push and pull between scarcity and desire quite like Hermès. For many clients, the official path to a Birkin is long and unpredictable. “We have so many clients who say they have been trying for years,” Watkins said. “They go in all the time, they buy little scarves, and they still do not have anything. They have dropped five or six thousand dollars on things they do not necessarily want and they still do not have the bag.”
Others have better luck, but often on the brand’s terms. “You can go in and ask for what you want, but a lot of times they will say, we have a Birkin 30 in yellow, take it or leave it,” she said. “People are scared to leave it because they do not want their sales associate to think they turned down an offer.”
That is where Mine & Yours luxury resale becomes the practical route. “From our store you pay a premium, but you get the bag you want, and you actually get a bag,” Watkins said. The market has also observed instances of buyers reselling items they never wanted. “People come in and sell us something brand new and say they did not want it in the first place,” she added.
For Watkins herself, the elusive boutique purchase remains elusive. “I have never got a Birkin from Hermès,” she said with a laugh. “Probably because of what I do, it is never going to happen for me.”
Anniversary events and Canada’s biggest luxury giveaway
To celebrate its twelfth year, Mine & Yours is giving away what it bills as one of the world’s most coveted bags, a 2019 Hermès M8 Gris Asphalte Taurillon Novillo Leather Birkin 30 with gold hardware. The bag will be displayed under glass at two in store events, October 22 at the Yorkville boutique in Toronto and October 23 at the Davie Street boutique in Vancouver, with refreshments, a live DJ, and a twelfth anniversary promotion of twelve percent off storewide, with some exclusions.
The giveaway runs on Instagram from October 14 to November 14, with the winner announced on November 14. “We are thrilled to celebrate twelve years of fashion, community, and sustainability with our customers and supporters,” Watkins said. “Giving away a Birkin is our way of saying thank you for making this journey possible.”
When asked why the team chose this exact specification, Watkins pointed to versatility and demand. “We wanted the Birkin 30, it is a very popular size,” she said. “We looked for a neutral grey because black, grey, and brown are always the most popular. If you are going to have one Birkin, most people want a neutral they can wear all the time.”
