One of my favorite ways of recycling clothes is to organize or host a clothing swap. This is a fun way to connect with family and friends (or make new friends depending on where the event is hosted), find a new home for some of your old clothes, and maybe pick up a few new items for your wardrobe.
Basically you have a small potluck party (I like to host them as brunches myself) and invite anywhere from 5 to 12 of your friends, family or neighbors, and encourage them to invite some of their friends as well. Everyone is required to bring at least one bag of lightly used clothing, shoes and accessories they want to get rid of to the event.
As people arrive, they throw all their clothes (shoes and accessories) into a large pile on the floor in a room with a mirror (and preferably some privacy to try things on). All the participants are encouraged to dive into the pile and search for clothes that appeal to them or would be suitable for other family members. If you’ve got a lot of people at your event, you may want to set a ground rule that on the first and each subsequent pass each participant is limited to three articles of clothing at a time. Participants then try on the items they retrieved from the pile and decide if they want to keep them. If not the clothes get returned to the pile for others to try out.
Collect whatever clothes are left over at the end of the event into bags. Reserve one or two of the bags with the best selection to seed the next clothing swap, and donate the rest to a local charity of the group’s choosing. The next time you host or organize one of these, be sure to invite some new people to add some variety to the selection of clothing – both in terms of style and sizes.
If this seems like to much work or you can’t seem to get enough people to come to one to make it worthwhile, then consider finding a commercially organized event in your area. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area then check Clothingswaps.com for local commercial events and information on their attempt to host events nationwide. You can also try clothesswap.meetup.com or use Google to identify local or regional clothing swaps in your area.
For those of you that own a small local retail business (i.e. a salon, clothing, shoe store or any type of retail space that you want to draw more attention to) hosting a clothing swap in your store is a great opportunity to connect with customers or prospects in your local community and increase visibility for your business!