A SWISHING success!

Dear all swish attendees,

thank you for coming along and making it a truly fabulous swish this afternoon! There were around 50 people who attended, lovely cups of tea, delicious cakes and most importantly lots of amazing clothes swaps!

I for one, love my 'new' clothes and am truly grateful to those who brought them in to swap for ones that they would want. There was a wonderful trench coat, lots of glitzy tops, funky jackets and dresses, smart trousers, belts and necklaces and a rather fetching flowery swimming cap in the bargain bin (you could just take from the bargain bin rather than swap it for something).

It worked like this: ladies brought in their unwanted items of clothing and depending on how many they brought in, got a token with that number on, so if they brought in 5, their token would enable them to take 5 different items home with them. Us, the organisers, arranged the clothes on tables and displayed them on clothing rails while the clothing owners mingled and ate cake. At 3.45pm there was 30 minutes of browsing where ladies could take a look at clothes, touch them and try them on, but not take them. There were no cat fights to speak of, but it was definitely quite hectic in an exciting way, as people raced against time to try on as many things as they could in the cramped changing room and grabbed and tugged and oohed and ahhhed at the beautful garments so temptingly on offer. Then at 4.15pm, the swish was open and you could scramble for whatever you wanted!

I made some posters for the walls, which showed facts about the perils of fast fashion, for example 500,000 tonnes of clothing goes to landfill each year and 1 cupfull of pesticides and fertilizers is used for every t-shirt made, on average. This is not to mention the carbon emissions from the animals used to make wool like sheep, llamas and alpacas, from the farm machinery used in growing crops used for fibres and in the transportation of clothing around the world. I am appalled at the intensive water usage in growing cotton. Plus a sad little fact that in the making of conventional silk, cocoons are boiled, which kills the moth inside.

Also donning the walls were the posters I made called 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: 10 Little things to think about':

1. Investment buying: to reduce the amount of clothes we buy, purchase good quality items that will last through many many fashion seasons and wear-and-tear.
2. When you do need to buy, buy ethically: Fair Trade, organic, for example People Tree.
3. Upcycle old clothes: adding an assortment of buttons or a strategically placed bow can refresh your wardrobe!

4. Take unwanted clothes to a charity shop, sell on ebay or give away on freecycle. If clothes are unmendable- take them to your nearest textile recycling facility.
5. Shop second hand or vintage- it makes old clothes feel like new!
6. Make do and mend: a stitch in time saves nine, as they say. Often you can easily fix it and revamp it rather than replace it.
7. Join, network, participate, lobby: Estethica, Ethical Fashion Forum, Environmental Justice Foundation.
9. Borrow and hire: for example with girlmeetsdress.com- an easy way to instantly update your wardrobe.
10. Go to a swishing party!

Oh my goddness, it's such a rush and I think I'm addicted! Thanks to my pals at Transition Highbury for all your hard work and to Luis and Julien of Café Photo fame, who took model-style fashion shoot photos. Transition Highbury will most likely do it again in the near future as it was such a success so keep your eyes peeled...