Local thrift store and community closet puts a creative spin on giving back

Rouge House, a thrift shop located off Brightside Drive, is more than just a second-hand retailer. 

Founded by artist Samantha Abshire in mid-2024, Rouge House is a conglomeration of parts, including a thrift store, vintage retailer, community closet and space for small artists to sell their work. The store works to take old articles of clothing and breathe new life into them in an effort to break the cycle of waste.

Before Rouge House, Abshire, 30, owned a small jewelry business called Blue House Jewelry. She says that even after converting the former smoke shop into Rouge House, she knew she wanted to feature some of the other small artists she met while at art markets and pop-ups for her jewelry business.

“I wanted to just uplift some of my friends who were making things, and then that eventually just turned into what it is now, which feels like so much more than what I thought it was going to be whenever I first opened,” says Abshire, who was recognized as one of 225 Magazine‘s “Twenty in their 20s” earlier this year. 

These artists include art collective Birdhouse & Co., run by three queer artists based out of Baton Rouge. The shop also carries handmade keychains, magnets, stickers, paintings, prints and more from other small business owners. 

Artists looking to create on a budget can also grab some free supplies off of the arts and crafts shelf near the front counter.

Aside from these local artists, Rouge House primarily operates as a thrift store, with clothes usually priced from around $2 to $8. The clothing on these racks, which line either side of the store, is what keeps the business flowing, says Abshire, covering bills, rent and other business expenses.

Rouge House’s vintage rack is curated by Abshire’s friend and employee Polly Devillier. Devillier sources these pieces, researches their origins and prices them. 

Devillier, as well as Abshire’s other employees Nat Nickens and Briyana Jackson, also helps with the shop’s upcycle rack. Most of the items on this rack are pieces that are wearable but have some sort of stain or tear that needs mending before going on sale to the public. 

Abshire and her team upcycle these items in a variety of creative ways: Tie-dye helps disguise discoloration, patches can cover rips or stains, and a needle and thread can repair zippers, replace missing buttons or do up any undone hems. 

“[We’ll] fix everything so it can be back into the clothing cycle again, and then it’s not just sent straight to the landfill,” Abshire says.

The shop has even started hosting upcycling workshops. Over the summer, Rouge House held events where people could customize their T-shirts with patches. Abshire says that upcycling clothes like this is a great way to personalize one’s wardrobe.

“I had a couple of people who did them for concerts that were coming up,” she says. “I had a girl who made a shirt for her job.”

Jewelry making was Abshire’s main passion for a long time, but since starting Rouge House, she has found a new passion in sewing and upcycling. 

“I think that [sewing] is one of the best skills, if not the best skill, that I’ve ever learned,” Abshire says, “and I just want to be able to show other people how to do it too so that they can start fixing their own clothes too.”

Giving back to her community is the main mission behind Rouge House, Abshire says, and the business also does this through a community closet. Abshire says she puts out over a hundred items per week for the community closet, a rack she puts outside the store with clothing items free for anyone.

“They come in here, and they’re like, ‘Do you mean it’s actually free?’ And I’m like, ‘Yes, absolutely!’” says Abshire. “It just feels so good to be able to do things for other people.”

Abshire is even looking into converting Rouge House into a nonprofit, as well as moving to a bigger location closer to Mid City. For the time being, however, she hopes that Rouge House is able to uplift those in the Baton Rouge community.

“That’s always been something that has motivated me as a person, and now having that platform and being able to do those things—it’s literally a dream come true,” Abshire says. “Any time that I start to get upset, I just like to think about everything that I’m doing and the people that I’m doing it for. It makes me feel better.”

Rouge House is located at 1750 Brightside Dr., Ste. E. The store is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. For more information on Rouge House, visit the store’s Instagram.