Western Bay of Plenty residents are invited to ditch their fast fashion addictions this month and shop sustainably instead with an Autumn Clothes Swap being hosted by Envirohub BOP.

Envirohub BOP project coordinator Milly McHardie says the event on Friday, May 19, at 31B Glasgow St, Tauranga City, is a chance to freshen up autumn-winter wardrobes at an affordable price while also helping to save the planet.

'So fast fashion as a whole, it is not great for the environment,” says Milly.

For those who don't know” fast fashion is the business model of replicating recent catwalk trends and high-fashion designs, mass-producing them at a low cost, and bringing them to retail stores quickly while demand is at its highest.

This encourages shoppers to continually buy clothing items to keep up with fashion – with the excessive consumption detrimental to the environment with many clothing items produced ending up in landfills and dumps as people search for the latest trendy items.

Milly says one way to curtail the production of new clothing is swapping what is already produced – hence the clothes swap next Friday, May 19, at the Envirohub BOP base.

Low-cost

'Second-hand shopping and swapping is a great opportunity and a low-cost way to try out different clothing styles without having an impact on the environment.”

The Autumn Clothes Swap is a free event on next Friday, May 19, from 6pm-8pm.

'We ask people to turn up at 6pm with a maximum of five clothing items – they can have a free drink and nibbles while we hang the items on hangers.”

At 6.30pm the swap begins – where individuals can swap as many items as they brought along. 'We encourage participants to bring gold coins in case they find more pieces than what they've brought,” says Milly.

'So if you bring five items to swap, you can take five items for free – any above this, you pay a gold coin donation for.”

Milly says all donations will be given to The Turning Point Trust.

'Please note your items may sell even if you don't find a swap. So only bring pieces you are ready to part with.”

Milly says many Sun readers will have clothing sitting in the back of closets to consider swapping.

'We ask that people only bring clothes in good condition. The thing we say is ‘as long as you'd be happy to receive it yourself' – that's a good rule of thumb.”

Milly says Envirohub BOP hosted their first clothes swap in March, with 30 attendees. 'Everyone walked away with whole new wardrobes, and we've had people ask for another event – so here it is.”

Trans-seasonal pieces

While people can bring along any clothing items they want to swap – with winter approaching Milly asks people to bring trans-seasonal pieces.

'I wouldn't suggest bringing a bikini going into winter,” laughs Milly. 'Last swap I brought a top I'd had for ages and never wore – now my co-worker wears it regularly.

'It's quite nice knowing someone else is enjoying it and actually wearing it – and continuing the life cycle of that garment.”

And with many parents already ‘swapping' children's clothes with fellow families – should us adults be doing the same?

Milly says watch this space – Envirohub aims to offer more targeted clothes swap – such as plus-size – in future. For more information on this event, see: https://envirohub.org.nz/event/autumn-clothes-swap/