5 Responsible Ways To Clear Out Your Wardrobe

RESALE

Resale sites have never been more popular, and these days there are several to choose from. If you’re pressed for time, find one that requires minimal effort and maximum reward. Here, are some of our favourites to get you started. 

Best For Vintage Pieces & Instagram-Loved Labels: Depop

Known as the place to find vintage gems and sell-out items, if you have these sorts of pieces lingering in your wardrobe, Depop helps users scour sellers’ accounts for a bargain. Just bear in mind the quality of images counts, so this platform is best suited to sellers who have time to devote to it. Like Instagram, people can follow your account to be notified the moment you upload something for sale.

Commission: Depop takes 10% of all sales.

Visit Depop.com

Best For Designer Items: Vestiaire Collective

From a vintage Fendi baguette bag to a Chanel 2.55, if you want to pass on some of your beloved high-end pieces, Vestiaire Collective is the place to do it. Once you’ve signed up, it’s a quick process to upload images and details. You can also generate more interest by sharing the listing on your social media. Once your item is sold, post to the brand’s Paris HQ where it’ll be checked over for authenticity then sent onto your buyer. 

Commission: Vestiaire Collective takes 15-25% of sales.

Visit VestaireCollective.com

Best For High-Street Heroes: Vinted

A marketplace for all brands across all budgets, Vinted is the best site if you want to post several pieces for sale at once. Here, everyone is out to grab a bargain and may not be completely label-focused, so stick to listing your less-valuable items here. But it’s still worth uploading pictures of each piece. Once you’ve got a sale, attach a pre-paid shipping label and pop it in the post. Simple. 

Commission: Vinted doesn’t take any commission from sellers, so you keep 100% of what you make. 

Finally, a few tips to bear in mind:

• Make sure you take good quality images – take shots from all angles, as buyers tend to like to see everything up close. 

• Be honest – the description box is your opportunity to answer any questions, so include as much information as possible about e.g. fit, faults and condition. 

• Go the extra mile – tell potential buyers if it’s from a pet-free or smoke-free home, as this can be an important factor. 

Visit Vinted.co.uk

SWAP

As the saying goes, ‘One woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure.’ If you don’t want an item, it doesn’t have to be the end of the line for it altogether. Instead, embrace circular fashion by swapping with other people. It could be with a friend or relative, but there are also sites and pop-ups shops  designed to make it easier to swap with people outside of your immediate circle. 

A favourite of ours is female-founded site SwapNation, where each item you upload is assigned a ‘token value’. You can then look for other items with a similar value to complete a like-for-like swap. It’s an easy way to move old clothes on and receive ‘new’ items to replenish your wardrobe. Also, keep an eye out for SwapNation’s pop-up shops – the most recent of which was in Shoreditch – where you can take your unwanted clothes along and meet other sellers in person. 

RENTAL

Fashion rental is on the rise, and rightly so. One way to get in on the action (aside from borrowing outfits for upcoming occasions, that is) is to lend out your own wardrobe. There may be some pieces you’re bored of wearing but other people will love, so it’s a great option for those pieces you’re not quite ready to part with but don’t get much wear from. There are now many rental sites and apps to try, but we’ve narrowed them down to our top two:

By Rotation

To start renting clothes to people who may have being eyeing up your favourite outfits on Instagram, simply upload a picture (preferably of you wearing it) and set your rental price. Then choose the minimum number of days it has to be loaned for and send the listing out to your community. Favourite brands on this app include Rixo, Rotate by Birger Christensen and Jacquemus – so if your closet has cult labels hanging in it, this is the place to give them a new lease of life.

Visit ByRotation.com

Hurr

A one-stop shop for everything from dresses and coats to bags and jewellery, it usually takes just 60 seconds to upload images and descriptions of each item onto the Hurr site or app. There’s also a ‘how to lend’ section to help calculate how much money you could make from each piece. Featuring hundreds of brands – from Ganni to Oscar de la Renta – it’s the rental platform to know if you have a penchant for designer pieces. 

Visit HurrCollective.com

DONATE

If your family and friends come round for a wardrobe raid, but you still find yourself with unwanted pieces left over, another rewarding option is to donate them to charity. Just remember some charity shops have been swamped with donations during lockdown, so it’s best to check what your local shop is accepting first. It’s also a good idea to pinpoint the charities that work directly with helping people who need clothing; for example, homeless charities or organisations that give to people in need around the world. You can also use sites such as iCollectClothes to organise free collections from your chosen charities. 

Some of the best charity shops to donate unwanted clothes to are:

• Traid

• Salvation Army

• Oxfam

• Save The Children 

• Barnado’s

RECYCLE

If you’ve tried reselling, renting or swapping to no avail, or you believe some items you have are past being re-worn and given to charity, recycling might be the necessary step to stop them going to landfill. Traid has 1,500 clothes banks nationwide and its website has a handy ‘find a bank’ section to track down your local drop-off point. A quick and easy way to offload clothes and textiles, the organisation also offers a free pick-up service.  A lot of councils also offer free textile collections, so check your local council website for the necessary information.