SWAP SHOP

 Feeling the sweatshop guilt of shopping in Primark? Where your clothing is made to the detriment of the workers who virtually live in the “factories” creating throwaway fashion for us. We completely blow our carbon footprint by flying it over to the UK, only to act like hooligans at a football match, elbows at the ready to clasp that coveted £2 top everyone within 10 square meters has already.

With the current financial climate ethics is not the only reason to find a new way to shop cheaply. Recycling has become even more inventive and has transcended into fashion. Originality is the key and, if you can find it on your doorstep for free you can spend your days relaxing and enjoying your new beautiful clothes without feeling the pinch of the wallet for yet another throwaway outfit, or the punch in the Primarni scrum.

There are plenty of ways of getting your hands on a home-grown, stylish bargain. We all know about vintage shopping; you need an open mind and patience to get through the junk but can find hidden gems. The owner of successful, paper doll vintage boutique, London (www.paperdoll.co.uk) cites the north as her secret wholesalers. Coming up to places such as Yorkshire to buy vintage then sell it at a mark up in London, proves you don’t have to be southern to have style.

People in the industry are supporting this new era of shopping. Paula Reed, editor of Grazia, and Twiggy, famous style icon and supermodel, have combined forces for a new prime time television programme Frock Swap. This programme is aired on a Tuesday night on BBC1 at 9pm and introduces a new mode of shopping called “swishing” in the industry. They set up a shop based entirely on clothes donated by 100 women of varying ages and sizes and then allow them to shop for free under the ethos “one woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure”. The women are offered style advice with designers on hand to customise certain items to make them current. They also give advice on how to create this season’s looks for free such as Gothic and Lace. And also what labels to look for if buying vintage that will be “investment,” labels such as Ossie Clarke.

Celebrity fashion icons including Matthew Williamson are also calling this movement “pioneering,” whilst regular on the fashion circuit, Fearne Cotton gave it her thumbs up. It is truly a “revolutionary” way to shop which Twiggy describes as “it’s going to be the next big thing”. Information on where events will be happening, as well as information on how to create your own swap shop, and how to customise or “recycle” your old clothes are shown on the website.

So if you are fed up with the fear of dreaded cloning, walking into a party and seeing someone else wearing the same dress that you so painfully fought to buy embrace the new genre. Oxfam is even stepping up its game using Jane Shepherdson, formerly of Topshop, now Oxfam’s new creative director, to jump feet first into this frontier of fashion. The first of their Oxfam “boutiques” opened in London on the 10th May 2008 with specially selected on-trend clothing. Although we are waiting for our very own “boutique” to open, Preston has an Oxfam vintage store on Friargate, so it’s time to shop ethically and cheaply.

Written by Natalie Verdin for PR1: Published 14/11/08