Clothes swapping: 'I haven't bought any new clothes for years'
2025-01-18
Category: entertainment

Sifting through clothes rails in a church hall, Tiphaine Gardner pulls together a three-piece outfit for her spring wardrobe. But, unlike traditional shopping, the striped cardigan, blue jeans and pink blouse will not cost her a penny. Tiphaine, from York, is one of 150 "swishers" who have come to Acomb Parish Church Hall for a clothes swapping event. In exchange for up to 20 of their unwanted items, the swishers can pick up to 20 new ones, as part of a sustainable trend taking communities by storm.
The monthly event has been running in Acomb since 2019, when a group of six or seven local mums first got together to swap outfits. Jenna Goodridge, who was part of the original team, pointed out a tiny square room off the main hall. "This was where we all started," she said. "I think we had about 20 people come along to our first swap. It was really great day, we really enjoyed it, and it's just grown and grown over the years."
Nowadays, the clothing is arranged and colour-coded to make the hall look like a boutique, but the first event was very different."I think we begged, borrowed and stole some rails from friends and family," Jenna said."We asked everyone to donate clothes, so we had a little bit of stock to start. "It was a little bit of a jumble sale in the beginning. There was quite a lot of bags and tables full of clothes, but it was definitely fun."However, the most recent event saw 21 volunteers, including a team from local project Good Gym, operating a finely tuned machine. They checked people in, collected their £1 donation, quality-checked their items and sorted them to be hung in their relevant sections.
"I think this is the busiest January we have ever seen, it's been lovely to see so many new faces," Jenna said."The idea of clothes swap is to encourage people to swap not shop."It is important to us that people, who perhaps wouldn't buy second-hand and wouldn't consider going in a charity shop, are now coming here every month and have been able to learn about sustainability and how we can have an impact on the environment."Tiphaine is a swisher who has been coming to the swap almost since the beginning, where she has picked up outfits for her everyday wardrobe and special events. "I haven't bought any new clothes for years now," she said."The clothes I'm wearing now are either from clothes swaps or charity shops."She cycles to Acomb from her home in Clifton Moor, as being sustainable is her main aim."There's way too many clothes and it's about not wearing something that someone else already has," Tiphaine added."If you go in some of the shops, everyone is wearing the same clothes. Here you find more vintage clothes and some very old clothes that you can upcycle and decorate."
Allison Ogden-Newton OBE, who is the chief executive of Keep Britain Tidy, said swishing offered an antidote to the dangers of overconsumption. "Nearly 10% of the world's carbon emissions come from the clothing industry," she said."Producing one t-shirt, in terms of carbon, is equivalent to watching TV for 34,000 hours. It's huge, it's mind-boggling."Instead of ordering something new, she suggested upcycling or swapping. "Swapping events are a fun thing to do, you get to meet people and you also get to see what other people are wearing," she added."It's an opportunity to get rid of things that are making you feel guilty because you bought it, you wore it once, it didn't quite do the thing you were hoping for and then you've been trying to ignore it. "It's lovely to potentially give that to someone who is going to get a lot more wear out of it."
Laura Fawcett, a York-based personal stylist, offered tips on how to get the most out of clothes swapping."I think it is worthwhile before these events to do a wardrobe edit," she said. "Go through and look at what is missing, what you don't wear because it needs something else to go with it, or if there is anything that needs replacing."There's no point arriving with a bag of things you don't wear and coming home with a bag of things for the sake of it."Ms Fawcett said shoppers should not be deterred by items that are the wrong size, as they can always be altered or upcycled to fit."If there's something you like but don't like the buttons, you could easily change them to suit you more," she added.Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here.