There is no better time than the run up to Christmas to re-think our spending habits. The credit crunch may have given us a reason to take a good look at what we are buying, but it is also offers us time to think about the quality and longevity of our products. In this post Primarni period, people want quality clothing and many have returned to charity shop chic, buying and restyling unwanted clothing into 'vintage' pieces. This phenomena may be sparked by the recent credit crunch, but it has been helped along by the growing awareness of environmental issues. Some people are even going one step further by swapping old clothing for free.
Inspired by TV's 'Frock Exchange', 'ReVamp' was an event held last Thursday at Koko Gorillaz in Cardiff and was essentially a clothes swap shop. What better way to both save money and help the environment! A small admin fee of £2.49 to enter the swap and armed with one item of old clothing, I got a chance to pick five items in return. Bargain! I took along an old sparkly shrug that should make someone's Christmas party a bit brighter and in return I could pick five items for free. Amazing. Although for me, changing my shopping habits proved harder than imagined. I only left with one dress, but I was happy. For those of us who are a little more creative it was a fashionista's heaven. The lovely girls who were sat the sewing machines offered great advice on how to customise my new dress and make it fashionable for this Christmas.
The event offered everyone a chance to get clothes for free, which is a rarity in today's world. Most importantly, the event raised awareness about the effect of mass produced clothing from stores such as Primark, Asda and Tesco. These stores offer the most up-to-date fashion on the high street almost as soon as it hits the catwalk, but this can have dire consequences. We have to question how these stores are managing to mass produce the clothing on this huge scale in such little time. Sweat shops in developing countries offer cheap labour allowing the clothes to remain cheap on British high streets. But a new issue of landfill has been raised. Man made materials now take up to 30% of British landfill sights, a rise of 7% in the last five years. These materials cannot be recycled.
It is high time that British consumers start to realise how their shopping habits can not only affect those working in such poor conditions abroad, but now can really start to have a detrimental effect on the wider environment.
