Simeon Brody
Last Sunday was the second York Green Festival, and I am pleased to say that all our hard work paid off and it went really well. I may now have more time to get back to my regular weekly blog which has suffered slightly over the summer... Now, one of the most popular places at YGF08 was the clothes swapping tent. One of the volunteer organisers, Sarah, had got some of her friends to donate some outfits, tops, blouses, leggings, hats, unidentifiable garments etc and create a 'bank' of clothes. Festival goers brought their own unwanted but re-usable garments and added them to the ones hanging up... and took away something which appealed, something new to them..... all completely for free! What a good idea! If I was more into clothes, I'd say it was brilliant, but I'm a bloke so it remains just a good idea.
Clothes swapping events are apparently becoming very popular. This makes good green sense as we throw away huge volumes of fabrics, tonnes of shoes and shed-loads of assorted unwanted, even unworn, garments... into landfill. Relatively little goes through the second-hand shops, and from personal experience when working at the local skip-site, these charity shops chuck out a lot of what we give to them in good faith. Clothes have a massive carbon footprint, cotton for example is especially water-hungry and needs lots of pesticides and fertiliser, and none of it grows in the UK where we buy and wear it.... Cotton, and all other natural fibres, can be recycled on the compost heap if you don't want it to be re-used as shoddy to make absorbant cloths or filler for padded items.
So, what's the attraction of clothes swapping then? Well, not much to me, as I'm just not that interested in how I look (although I'm very happy to see things re-used!) But to some of my female friends, it's extremely exciting, as they get a new outfit for nothing. This activity has acquired a new name, 'Swishing' and a website devoted to it where you can download invitations and learn how to organise your own. Infact, a quick search reveals it's a huge industry now, with all sorts of media space devoted to it, from US-based Treehugger through to the electricity company I buy my 100% renewable energy from! (and they were early uptakers too....their event was over a year ago..)
There's so much excitement and fuss about this activity that people have even started businesses promoting the concept. A local woman, Jacey Lamerton, has been organising swishing parties (but they're more than 'just' swishing...) as can be seen here. If you are interested in having her organise something, then you can email her at jacey@getyourfrocksoff.co.uk. But I think that it can't be too difficult to organise a clothes swap amongst friends yourself.... after all, Sarah our York Green Festival volunteer did it as well as organising the workshops marquee and it virtually ran itself!
Sometimes I wish I was female as then I might get excited by clothes.... I wish, I swish...
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