teaHis fashion show was no ordinary fashion show. Firstly, I have rarely seen a more passionate group of models. They are all unpaid volunteers living their best lives. Secondly, everything was bought second hand from a charity shop called Second Life in East Sussex. And thirdly, half of them were sold that day. Even the damaged parts. Second Life’s annual fashion show, held throughout the summer, is just one of the creative ways to keep hard-to-sell clothing out of incinerators, landfills and illegal waste dumps in developing countries.
This “buy direct from the catwalk” concept is one that is increasingly being adopted by charities. Oxfam’s show at this month’s London Fashion Week, styled by thrift queen Bay Garnett, saw pop star Sam Ryder, activist Katie Piper and costume designer Sandy Powell hit the catwalk in beloved boiler suits, capes and wedding dresses. The dress was soon sold in Vinted stores. Charity Super.Mkt, the multi-charity department store for pre-loved fashion, is hosting the People’s Catwalks at the festival. Costumes are made from damaged clothing, surplus inventory and materials. For Sustainable Fashion Week, The Salvation Army is hosting a fashion show at its Swansea donation center on October 2. All looks are available immediately after purchase.
Second Life isn’t just about fashion shows. We overdye clothes to spruce them up, work with local designers to upcycle clothing, and run workshops where volunteers make bags out of tired t-shirts, wallets out of tattered jeans, and trousers out of duvet covers.
This is a great blueprint for charity shops that are overflowing with unsaleable, low-quality donations. [donations] says Robin Osterley, CEO of the Charity Retail Association.
This low quality is partly because consumers are “cherry picking” the best clothes for sale on Vinted, says Dawn Dungate, an independent consultant who advises charities on textile recycling. “Anything that doesn’t sell, please give it to a charity to dispose of.” When I went through the piles of unsold clothing in Second Life, I found a lot. Manager Naomi Phitidis says every week the 1,100-litre wheelie bins are “filled to bursting”.
Thankfully, our well-resourced charity shops are doing their best to solve the problem of overproduction in fashion. “There has been a noticeable increase in creativity,” says Dungate. Dungate says this comes down to a young workforce. “The older generation had a very strong mindset of, ‘This is what we do, and we’re not going away from it.’ But now we have to think outside the box.”
When Havens Hospices, a chain of more than 25 charity shops across Essex, was experiencing falling sales due to rising costs and competition from Vinted and Depop, it launched a designer upcycling collaboration with local designers and launched a £12 mystery bag containing four items in the same dress size, themed around a specific aesthetic such as cottagecore, Y2K or simply black. They sent some to influencers, and their haul videos boosted sales. The mystery bags will also be available from Isabel Hospice’s eBay store from November, Age UK’s Fara’s store in Greenford, London and the Salvation Army at Christmas.
“No one in this industry wants to waste anything,” Osterley says. “They want to reuse their clothes rather than throw them away.” What’s more, he says these different ways of disposing of used clothes provide “much better income than rags” – clothes and fabrics unsuitable for resale – and save charities from having to “pay to throw things away”.
Of course, solving fashion’s waste problem shouldn’t depend on the creative thinking of charities. Campaign groups such as the Or Foundation and Fashion Revolution continue to call for the industry to take more responsibility. Meanwhile we are lucky to have charity shops. “So many people have upped their game beautifully,” says Mary Portas, who brought groundbreaking change to the sector 15 years ago with her Mary’s Living & Giving store. “They are no longer seen as a blight on the high street, they are seen as a beacon. I get nothing from this but hope.”
Here are some other clever ways charity shops distribute our old clothes:
1. Rail repair and repair
Barnardo’s is leading the way, with new Re-Fashion hubs in Bradford and Sutton Coldfield. The in-store repair workshop is staffed by trained volunteers and sells damaged clothing at discounted prices, which can then be repaired or upcycled for a small donation. In May, Sue Ryder launched Perfectly Imperfect. Look for purple stickers detailing the clothing’s minor flaws and its low price. Likewise, Shelter this month launched its Rescue and Repair range of discount clothing for small defects, featuring a QR code that customers can scan to find repair guides. Meanwhile, Fara introduced the Mend-Me rail. The Streatham, south London store featured easy-to-repair, high-end luxury goods (e.g. Jigsaw, Reiss, Whistles), while the Angel store featured damaged designer pieces (McQueen, Gucci, Chanel).
2. Kilo sale and recharge date
It’s a win-win. The charity sells items that would otherwise be discarded and we receive a discount. St Oswald’s Hospice in Newcastle upon Tyne holds a monthly kilo sale (£2 per kilo). Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice Care’s monthly kilo sale runs seven days a week in Farnborough, Surrey (£7.50 per kilo). St Wilfrid’s Hospice in West Sussex regularly has filling bags on sale for £10. But these flash sales often don’t have fitting rooms, so keep your measuring tape handy.
3. Star power
A cardboard cutout in the window of Ed Sheeran’s local Suffolk charity shop shows that celebrity donations are no longer a closely guarded secret. The Children’s Hospice of East Anglia has raised more than £50,000 through Sheeran’s donations, which include his trousers. This month donations from Martin Freeman, Sharon Horgan, Patrick Grant and others will be delivered to Traid’s 12 London stores. And in December, look for celebrity donations at Crisis’ Christmas pop-up shop in London. Last year donations came from Kate Moss, Daniel Craig and Liam Gallagher.
4. Indirect social activities
Lockdowns and late-night openings can both earn you more money at the register. Traid’s second-hand socials at its London store will include DJs, wine tastings, workshops and more. Check out the following event list: Hospice in the Weald is hosting a “Love your Label” fixture at its Sevenoaks store on September 25, while Charity Super.Mkt’s biennial Super Jumble returns to London’s Elephant and Castle on October 25.
5. Designer upcycling
Who better to tackle this unloved surplus than Britain’s new generation of upcycling designers? Charity Super.Mkt’s Made Better collection consists of single-use clothing recycled from unsold stock (Spitalfields and Brent Cross stores). Oxfam has partnered with Leeds Beckett University to set up an upcycling lab where fashion design students create unwearable clothing from donations. It will be available online from Oxfam from 1 October. Crisis’ latest upcycling collaboration with multi-size designer Planet Soph lands in London’s Brick Lane store later this month.