‘Shwopping’ is the latest initiative from Marks & Spencer, launched by British icon and respected campaigner, Joanna Lumley. Marks & Spencer think that old clothes should have a future, not an ending at the bottom of a bin, so they’re starting their own fashion revolution.
Customers popping in store to buy something new will be encouraged to drop an old item of clothing into one of the shop’s ‘shwop drops’. In collaboration with Oxfam, they will then work to resell, reuse or recycle donated items, and in the process, help support people living in poverty.
It’s easy to be cynical about Marks & Spencer’s collaboration with Oxfam. The shwopping campaign will get customers in-store and exposed to all the new season’s clothes, enticed to buy something while knowing that in this moment of perhaps self-indulgence, they have also done something charitable and environmentally friendly. Brownie points all round.
However, it seems Marks & Spencer is aware of the potential for cynicism and has therefore provided answers to any qualms on their website. The inspiration behind shwopping is an awareness of the huge amount of clothes sent to landfill each year; approximately 500,000 tonnes or 1 bn items of clothing a year.
The planet’s landfill sites and resources are not infinite, so we should be re-using and recycling clothes where possible. Moving away from the popular notion of ‘disposable’ fashion, shwopping aims to create a ‘buy one, give one’ culture, in the hope that reusing, reselling or recycling old clothes becomes standard practice.
But will shwopping actually encourage more sustainable fashion or just encourage people to buy more? Marks & Spencer is a business, so of course they want to sell more clothes. But shops like Topshop, H&M, and Hollister appear to be making only token efforts towards more sustainable fashion, or else doing nothing at all.
Shwopping is beneficial to Oxfam by helping those in poverty around the world, but also to the general public who may find a bargain in Oxfam through shwopping donations.
Shwopping has more advantages than disadvantages. Yes, it may encourage the public to buy more clothing but they are always going to do so – we live in a materialistic society. This way, consumers give something back to the planet and their fellow human beings in the process.
Truly sustainable fashion is a long way off but Marks & Spencer, one of the country’s biggest clothing retailers, is making a good start. Hopefully others will follow suit.