You’ve decided which clothes you want to clear out of your closet. Now, it’s time to find a sustainable way to rehome them. Here, we go through three of your best options.
DONATE
Passing clothing along for a greater good is one of the easiest ways to contribute to your community, and many organisations accept donations. For those wishing to offer up luxury items, the Lane Crawford Joyce Group’s initiative LUXARITY collects pre-loved pieces that are resold to help fund grants around sustainable development goals.
For clothes that aren’t high-end, options abound. In Hong Kong SAR, you can find hundreds of large outdoor used clothing containers for donations, and several retailers like Zara even offer in-store collection containers. The trusted The Salvation Army Recycling Programme accepts clothing and goods which can be dropped off at collection centres or picked up from your home in larger quantities.
In China, social enterprise Roundabout China provides those in need with clothing and other home, or sells them to raise funds. Flying Ant also offers a free clothing pickup service right from your doorstep via WeChat in over 50 cities.
SWAP & LEND
IRL swap parties with friends or communities are on the rise. It’s a good excuse to get together and trade pieces to borrow or keep, but for those who’d prefer to swap from the sofa, there’s also a new wave of digital platforms. These peer-to-peer apps for mid-to-high-end fashion allow users to upload photos for potential “swappers” to browse. Rent the Runway is one of the best, with newer alternatives like Bag Romance and nuuly coming up the ranks.
In China, along with clothing swaps between friends, you’ll find others hosted by charitable organisations. One example is Live With Less, a Beijing-based project co-created by architecture studio Crossboundaries and mindfulness organisation The Mind Body Project, which hosts quarterly meets aimed at reducing excessive consumption.
SELL
The durable and timeless nature of luxury garments and accessories make them a particularly great fit for the resale market, an industry that is growing four times faster than the primary luxury market thanks to online resellers. In Hong Kong, you’ll find platforms such as HULA and, for the little ones, Retykle. In China, Plum is gaining steam, while The RealReal and Vestiaire Collective currently wear the global consignment crowns.
If you’ve cleaned out your wardrobe and are looking to inject it with some timeless essentials, shop our edit below.