Slow Fashion

Monday

18Jan2010

Join The Big Swish!

Daisy Green Magazine and Big Wardrobe have come together to hold the biggest ever swishing roadshow here in the UK, and the next event to kick off is this Thursday, 21 January. If you don't live in the big smoke, don't worry, as there are several events coming up across the country. This is your BIG chance to rid your wardrobe of clothes you no longer desire and get your stylish hands on a wardrobe of new clothes and accessories - for FREE! Sounds good? You bet! Read on...

Photo courtesy of Daisy Green Magazine - Looks like a lot of fun!

Everyone is in on the act of swishing, from Twiggy to GMTV and the craze is spreading fast all over the world. And you'll want to join the trend when you hear the line up of entertainment at The Big Swish. To kick off the London event at 6pm, there will be some gorgeous ethical pop-up shops, all the rage at the moment. What's more you'll get to jig to live music by The Phoenix Rose - great. And to top it all, there'll be a celebrity clothes auction - rumour has it outfits from Lady Gaga and Kaiser Chiefs! And if you're ready and waiting, you could get yourself a free makeover courtesy of Green People as this week they launch a new line to their already gorgeous organic make up collection. No doubt the other events across the UK later this year will be just as entertaining!

Now that you're interested, here's how to get involved. The rules of The Big Swish are simple:

Raid your wardrobe

Check your wardrobe for good condition clothing items (up to 15) and bring them with hangers to the venue at the designated time (click here for places and times). The Big Swish team will then check and sort them for you into two categories - High Street clothing and Premium designer labels, including clothes you may feel are a bit special. The ultimate decision though lies with the expert sorting team on the door.

High Street or Premium Labels

Once sorted, you will receive one swishing passport for entry to the swish. If you have donated both high street and premium clothes you will have access to both swishing areas. The number of items you have donated will be recorded on your swishing passport to allow you to grab the same amount of clothing and/or accessories to take home with you. Yee haw!

Swish to your heart's content

Cast your eye over the rails and grab your favourite pieces. Then head to the changing area to try your 'new' clothes on. But remember, you can only take the number of clothes shown on your swishing passport. However, you are free to re-enter these areas at any time and swap your choices for different items to take back to the changing rooms (just like most changing rooms on the high street).

How many would you like?

If you just can't help yourself and fall in love with more clothes than you're allowed, then you can make a minimum donation of £2 for each high street item and £5 for each Premium item, which will be donated to the charity.

Don't forget your passport

You must show your passport before leaving the clothes swish, to make sure the number of items you're taking home correspond to the items you brought with you. Obviously, if you don't want as many items as you donated, there's no need to fret. Any clothing left at the end of the event will be donated to the designated charity. Nice one.

So there you have it. All you have to do now is pay on the door or buy your tickets online from The Big Swish. The next event is this Thursday 21 January, but The Big Swish also have lots of events across the UK in the coming months, including Leeds, Manchester, Glasgow, Newcastle (where the lovely green magazine Daisy is based), Cardiff, Bristol, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Sheffield and Bradfield. Go on, where else can you bag a whole new wardrobe for only the price of a ticket - £5. Brilliant stuff!

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A Slow Fashionista's Best Friend

London Fitting Rooms Reception AreaConsider the London Fitting Rooms your new best friend. This North London tailoring, alterations and sample making business is a mecca for slow fashionistas across London and beyond. They excel at taking your designer clothes and tailoring them to flatter your shape or updating them to a current style. Even better, they can transform the clothes you banished to the back of your wardrobe, bringing them bang up to date. London Fitting Rooms' special service extends the life of your clothes like no other, so we went behind the scenes to find out more!

We arrive at the foyer to hear the busy hum of work. Greeted warmly by the owners, Sophie Weyeneth and Hanne Laitinen, we immediately sense their professionalism and commitment to their work. Both trained as professional tailors and dress makers, they've quickly put London Fitting Rooms on the map in one year since they launched. Sophie says "We like to go that little bit extra and offer an impeccable service." And let's face it, you'd want your favourite pieces in trustworthy skilled hands. Sophie adds "We specialise in luxury designer clothes as well as vintage pieces. Our clients need someone they can trust."

London Fitting Rooms are highly skilled with delicate fabrics and materials: Chiffon, beads, delicate velvet, fur and leather. But it's the alterations that grabbed our attention the most. Imagine wanting to lengthen a skirt, something most of would want but wouldn't know how to. London Fittings Room, on the other hand, can as they have a load of tricks up their sleeves. Add a panel, reduce panels, take in side seams, narrow shoulders, add bust cups, lengthen sleeves, shorten hems, you name it, they can do it!

While London Fitting Rooms have a long list of designer boutiques on their books, luckily they also cater for individuals like us. And while they have plenty of space for appointment fittings at their North Finchley studio, they will also visit you in the comfort of your own home, and just a few days later, will be ready to deliver your new piece(s) back to you.

And they don't just alter men and womens clothes. They also cater to brides and grooms as well as children. If you're a parent and you've previously splashed out on a great outfit for your little one, and they quickly grew out of it, now you know where to go to extend its life and your investment. It's amazing what London Fitting Rooms can do.

To be honest, we'd be scared to 'try this at home' with our favourite clothes. And that's why London Fitting Rooms is the perfect slow fashion solution to get the most out of your favourite clothes, or bring back old clothes for the 21st Century.

Without a doubt, the tailoring process requires attention to detail. Finnish partner Hanne shared, "You really need to love the process to get the result you want." And going by Hanne's smile, you can rest in peace in the firm knowledge your clothes will be lovingly and skillfully reshaped back into something you'll cherish for many years to come.

London Fitting Rooms: 18-20 Rosemont Road, London NW3 6NE. Tel: 020 7431 9993

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Extend Your Dress Life

To be a slow fashionista, we need to care for our clothes immaculately. This doesn't come naturally to me. Ridiculous I know. Rather than store my clothes carefully, I have been guilty on many an occasion to use my chairdrobe, bedrobe, sometimes even my floordrobe. So what am I going on about?

According to the Urban Dictionary Chairdrobe is: "The art of piling clothes on a chair to be used in place of a closet or dresser. If a chair is not available one can always defer to a floordrobe". Are you guilty as charged too? Why not join me and make a Slow Fashion New Years Resolution for 2009 and commit to your wardrobe and better care for your clothes. Extending the life of our clothes is an important aspect of being a true slow fashionista.

To coincide with our Slow Fashion Feature on Ethical Dresses, this post now details expert advice on how to give our dresses the TLC they, and our environment, deserves.

Tip 1: Eco Friendly Cleaning

A gentle handwash in luke warm water with an eco friendly laundry detergent is always the best bet unless of course your dress is dry clean only. The operative word is gentle. Avoid harsh chemicals at all costs and to further the gentle theme, try not to wring out the garment after laundering as this will damage the fibres. Simply roll it up in a towel and then hang it out to dry.

Dry Cleaning can extend the life of a garment. It will maintain a dress' fresh appearance for longer and will minimise colour fading. Ironically, the traditional chlorinated solvent used in dry cleaning can actually damage fabrics and cause environmental damage as well. The main culprit is perchloroethylene. Luckily there is an alternative to perc. GreenEarth® is a dry cleaning solvent using silica, a hugely abundant natural element and has proved to be an excellent cleaning agent, is odourless, is eco friendly and leaves garments looking and feeling great. No colour fading will occur with GreenEarth. It is also suitable for the finest garments including those featuring beads, sequins and leather trim. The following places offer this technology to care for your clothes: Jeeves of Belgravia (across London); Harpers Dry Cleaning (West Midlands); Johnsons Dry Cleaning (England, Scotland, Wales) or simply google around in your local area.

Tip 2: Prevent Wrinkle Development

That's posh for hanging clothes up! Dresses need to be hung properly on padded hangers as they take care of the shape of your attire. I found some lovely hangers by Green Rabbit and are handmade in the UK with love. Green Rabbit offer two sizes, one for kids, one for adults and come in a lovely range of patterns. But don't hang more than one dress on a hanger at a time. If you own a dress that would be better stored in a box, just make sure you use plenty of acid-free tissue paper between the folds and around the dress and make sure the box is large enough to avoid unnecessary folding. And don't leave it there to be forgotton. Get it out once in a while and repack to avoid permanent creases.

Tip 3: Keep out the sunlight

Exposure to direct and harsh sunlight for clothes dulls the fabric and lessens the original texture. A dark cover is always your best bet.

Tip 4: Treat Stains ASAP

Speed of treatment is key, and don't treat and leave to dry as it'll be a bugger to get out once dry so always check your stain removal has worked beforehand. I found a cool list of natural ways to remove stains on Grown Up Green. Not a chemical in sight so Granny was right all along. Hope you're listening Mr Unilever!

Tip 5: Moth Hole Prevention

If you've already got moth holes, don't panic! Think positive. A hole, or stain for that matter, can be covered up with a bit of lace, beads or a brooch if the moth has attacked in a convenient place like they did with my favourite green wool dress! If you want to prevent them, then whatever you do don't use moth balls, as they are known carcinogenics! To prevent moth attacks, make sure your dress is stored away in a clean state, there's little moisture and is kept in a dark space with plenty of air flow. I found a very useful herbal sachet recipe to ward off moths on Care2 and essential oils are meant to work a treat too. Try clove and cedarwood or here's an essential oil recipe to concoct to dampen cottonwool balls with and place in your wardrobe.

This post was the first in a series to extend the life of our clothes to accompany our Slow Fashion blog articles. My next post will deal specifically with shoes.

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Sunday

30Nov2008

Second Hand Kid's Clothes

Our kids grow up fast. Very fast. And that means we invest a lot of money in children's clothes with little return on investment. With family sizes getting smaller, the chances of hand-me-downs are reduced. Even worse, landfills are filling up rapidly, as every year sees each of us throw away 30kg of textiles. So what to do? Swap... and make some money while you're at it.

The GIN Lady has roamed the internet to bring you the best places to sell, swap and buy second-hand clothes to maximise your investment in kiddies clothes.

Preloved.co.uk

What: Preloved celebrates the joy of second hand and is the perfect place to sell old clothes, in particular designer clothes. They love to turn your clutter into cash by selling it for free. And it's not just kids clothes on offer here. At Preloved you can sell anything you like, from home and garden to computing. At the time of writing, they have 609 adverts for children and baby second hand clothing alone.

Wallet: Free to join or £5 for a whole year to receive the very latest ads before everyone else sees them.

BigWardrobe.com

What: Exciting new place to offload your old clothes. Big Wardrobe has a considerable section for children clothes (women and men's fashion too), and you can either swap, earn cash or do a combination of both.

Wallet: 100% free membership.

eBay.co.uk

What: eBay is so big I'd be surprised if anyone hasn't heard of the world's largest online auction house! As I write there are 91,237 items listed for girls clothing, and that doesn't include shoes!

Wallet: Free to join, while eBay takes a cut from sale value.

What's Mine Is Yours

What: Established for four years, this swap shop by vintage guru Judy Berger is a great place for children's clothes. Not as substantial as BigWardrobe but a good place to sell on designer gear as well as casual clothes. Also does second hand women and men's fashion as well as furniture. What makes this site different is the personal touch from Judy.

Wallet: 100% free membership.

Ooffoo

What: Established November 2008, this new offering by Natural Collection is "the brand new exciting eco space where it's FREE to swap, sell, give away, recycle and share ideas with like-minded people." Ooffoo is a place where you can pretty much swap and sell anything, and looks promising in view of its community building capacity.

Wallet: 100% free membership.

ClothesAgency.com

What: While not as big as the others, this is again a great place to sell designer clothes for kids at reasonable prices, so you can get a good return on investment. It has the advantage of not being an auction house, so if you fall in love with an item, you can buy it on the spot. The Clothes Agency also sells clothes for ladies and gentlemen.

What: £1.25 per listed item, but no sales commission and hence no hidden extras. You get the full sale price!

Flog.co.uk

What: Got something to flog? Flog has a significant number of children's clothes listed, alongside everything else imaginable. And it's flexible as you can sell it, give it away, swap it or ask for offers. Flog also has the benefit of local selling although there wasn't much in my local area when I looked.

Wallet: Free to sell items.

Local Swaps and Selling

Gumtree is another great place to list items for sale and I also recommend googling around in your local area as well as reading your local newspapers. You could of course arrange a swishing party among your local mum friends! Some areas have their own dedicated organisation to swap, sell or buy second-hand children's clothing. In London we have LOOP which is a fantastic place to buy and sell kids clothes, in particular the nice stuff. Based in Ealing, West London, you can book an appointment with their team and shortly afterwards, about an hour or so, they'll offer you a price. For Londoners, I think LOOP looks the best place to declutter your kid's wardrobe and make some money. Better still, the LOOP shop at 49 New Broadway seems like a great place to pick up nice clothes at reasonable prices.

So don't feel guilty if you splash out on the occasional expensive outfit for your kids. There's life (and money) to be had after a year's wear that's for sure. Just don't put it in the bin!

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Sunday

23Nov2008

Slow Fashion is the antithesis of Fast Fashion which sees our society churn through the latest style fads only to be thrown out or buried deep never to be worn again. The GIN Lady is to explore and write about this concept over the coming months, but to get you thinking, here's a five minute tube to stimulate your own interpretations. Look at the jumper in the video as the story unfolds. It reminds of my favourite 'comfort' jumper that now features gaping holes from overuse, but it's still my favourite every day staple behind closed doors! I'd love you to share your own slow fashion stories too...

If you're looking for a winter coat but want to adorn it in slow fashion style, read our ethical winter coat blog post.

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