Tales of the city - Rethreads @ Carriageworks

We all love to give to charity......right?

It's a pretty easy process. You give what you can and in return you get the warm fuzzy feeling of knowing that  you've done something to help some one else.
Though there are times when charity needs to begin at home. Well that's why Rethreads @ Carriageworks is so brilliant. Held in conjunction with Oxfam, Rethreads is a mass clothing exchange where you get to clear out your wardrobe and swap your unwanteds for someone elses unwanteds and everyone gets to go home with new clothes and the satisfaction of knowing you've done something good.

So what do you do? It's quite easy really.
Turn up with your bag of good condition clothing which is given the once over by the helpful volunteers and in return you receive a stylish wrist band with total number of clothing credits you can use.

With credits attached firmly to hand you then throw yourself into the mass of other traders and start rumaging for treasure

Now although it was a busy day and the frenzy of rumaging was similar to the Boxing Day sales, all traders were quite polite really and very friendly. Maybe it was because we were all buoyed by knowing we were not only giving to charity but all the the world as a whole. Clothing exchanging is actually a big gold star for sustainability and the environment, plus its a big tick to fair trading and the abolition of sweat shops.

Then, bounty in hand, it was off to more helpful volunteers to have our items checked out

All in all we did really well. Came home with quite a few pairs of jeans, new work pants, summer tops and a couple of dresses. The satisfying part of the the whole experience is that you do at times have clothes in your wardrobe that either no longer fit or or your simply bored of, yet may have cost a pretty penny, thus your not quite willing to get rid of. With Rethreads, quite literally ones trash is anothers treasure. When you return home your wardobe may not be any lighter but it will have a new personality. Currently Rethreads is held at Carriageworks twice yearly though there are clothing swap events popping up all over the city.