Street Store How To Guide

STREET STORE HOW TO GUIDE

1

INTRODUCTION Every year in the UK we throw away 300,000 tonnes of clothing and on top of this there is a massive 183 million items of outgrown baby clothing tucked away in UK homes.

In an effort to try and divert these clothes from the bin, Hubbub trialled ‘Street Store’, a new pilot to reduce textile waste, in 2018. Street Store is a community clothes swap which encourages people to update their or their children’s wardrobe for free by bringing along preloved high-quality clothing to swap.

To find even more clothes a good home, the next step is to encourage other communities to join in with an initiative designed to redistribute quality pre-loved clothing. Increasing the lifespan of our clothing will decrease the amount of clothing that goes to landfill and help local families to save money.

Street Store has been successfully trailed in a community centre and an after-school and summer activity club. It would work in any location where members of the public regularly meet up in the community such as; a school, library, café, arts centre, community spaces, and local businesses.

About Hubbub Hubbub helps people make the most of clothing through events and activities that are fun, sociable and fit easily into our everyday lives. This ‘how to’ book will teach you what we learned from running the first Street Store campaign in London. You don’t need a background in fashion or textiles, you just need a willingness to have a go.

Street Store was created in collaboration with and funded by North London Waste Authority.

Hubbub is a charity that explores innovative ways to interest people in sustainability issues. If you do decide to run an event please keep Hubbub in the loop at hello@hubbub.org.uk!

2

3

HOW DOES STREET STORE WORK? Street Store is a really easy way of letting people swap their clothes for free and stop good quality clothes going in the bin. All people have to do is bring a few items of good quality clothing and swap it for something that fits.

For example, if someone brings along 2 T-shirts they can swap it for 2 other items of clothing.

EXCHANGE SYSTEM

T H E S PA C E

TIMEFRAME

Unless you wish to create a token or spend time valuing an item, Street Store is based on trust. This means you can either manage the Street Store space yourself and help people select clothes similar to what they’ve dropped off or you can leave people to it and let people swap clothes at their leisure. Our tests revealed operating a trust system did work, but it’s entirely up to you.

All you need is a small space to set-up the Street Store materials (listed later in this guide). We recommend finding enough space for a clothes rail, a table, and a bit of room for people to browse.

Street Store can be a one-off event, be installed for a set amount of time (e.g. a week or a month), or it could become a permanent interactive space for members of the public to swap clothes.

Feel free to trial it and pick and choose a length of time that works for you and your organisation.

4

WHO CAN SWAP CLOTHES IN STREET STORE? Anyone can take part in Street Store! If you wear, buy, swap or throw away clothes, Street Store can be tailored to you.

However, to make it easier to manage you may wish to choose a specific audience or clothing type.

Ideas for who you might wish to run Street Store for:

Kid’s clothes swap Invite parents to swap high-quality, outgrown kid’s clothes. Kid’s grow out of their clothes fast and Street Store can help keep the ever-changing wardrobe fresh. You can specify the ages and/or size-range.

A generic clothes swap for the wider community

A fancy dress or costume swap

Christmas Jumper swaps

This can be as part of another event or an event within itself.

Street Store can offer the opportunity for anyone to update their wardrobe. You can choose to have a Street Store of a specific type (e.g. gender, or specific item of clothing) or you can keep it entirely open, this just might need a bit of organisation and guidance.

The Street Store pack can also be used before fancy-dress parties or before holidays such as Halloween. Trade last year’s costume for something entirely different without the need to go shopping or throw away last year’s costume.

Christmas Jumpers are just one example of a seasonal or specific item that you may wish to set-up Street Store for. It’s a creative twist to help people save money and update their wardrobe for free.

5

WHO CAN RUN STREET STORE? Anyone with a desire to run Street Store can do so, we’ve set-up this kit to ensure it’s as quick and easy as possible. All you need is the time to advertise it, some essential items, and a suitable space to set-up in.

Our experience has shown that Street Store works best in community spaces that are well visited, as this enables more people to see the clothes and acts as selfadvertisement for people to bring clothes next time they visit.

6

W H AT W I L L I N E E D ?

Necessary:

1. A CLOTHES RAIL AND HANGERS This is to hang the clothes up on to enable people to browse easily.

Alternatively, you could place or arrange clothes on tables around a room but this may take up a lot more space.

2. CLOTHES You will need clothes for people to swap.

There are a few ways to do this: •

You could ask people to bring clothes in advance.

•

If you have a budget you can find some good quality starter clothing in charity shops.

•

You can ask people to bring clothes on one day and give them tickets for how many items they brought in. You can then put out the clothes the next day and people can swap their tokens for clothes from the swap.

3. A NOTEBOOK It’s useful to have a notebook or another way of keeping track of the number of items you’ve swapped.

7

W H AT W I L L I N E E D ?

Necessary:

4. MEASUREMENT SYSTEM

5. PROMOTIONAL M AT E R I A L S

You may want to use a luggage scale to keep track of the weight of clothes that you’ve prevented going in the bin.Alternatively, if you can’t source a scale, you could count the number of items collected/given away and record these figures in a notebook.

To let people know about your Street Store.

In the pack you will find: • • • •

Social media cards Social media banners Example social media posts Adaptable posters

8

W H AT W I L L I N E E D ?

Optional: AGE 8 YEARS

1. DIVIDERS

2. CLEVER CARE CARDS

These are to put on the clothes rails to should you wish to split up the clothes by sizes, gender, type etc.

You may want to provide people with clever care cards to take away. These will provide people with basic care instructions on how to make clothes last longer, save money, and be kinder to the environment (included in this downloadable pack but will need printing or emailing out).

9

HOW DO I LET PEOPLE KNOW? Included in this how-to pack are; example social media posts, social media cards, posters and flyers which you can customise to let people know when your swap is taking place.

It’s best to advertise your event a few weeks before it begins to give people some time to get their clothes together. Putting up your own posters, and working with local community centres and schools are great ways to spread the word.

The more people who participate the more successful your Street Store will be, so be sure to shout far and wide and use the #StreetStore hashtag on social media.

Come and swap your outgrown high-quality clothing (ages 6-11) TIMES: 9:30 – 11 am; 4 – 5:30pm

D AT E S : 30th July onwards

L O C AT I O N : Barnard Adventure Playground, Charlotte Terrace, Junction with Copenhagen Street, London N1 0JH

Follow us at #StreetStore Event is free for all attendees

Let Hubbub and NLWA know about your event so they can share it online.

T H I S P R O J E C T W A S F U N D E D B Y N O R T H L O N D O N W A S T E A U T H O R I T Y.

W W W. H U B B U B . O R G . U K

REGISTERED CHARITY NO. 1158700

10

SOCIAL MEDIA EXAMPLES The below social media posts should be adapted depending on what people are able to swap at your Street Store.

• Ready to let outgrown kid’s clothes leave the nest?

Visit our #StreetStore event to swap high-quality clothes for something a little more fitting.

• Live in [location]? Get involved in our free [kid’s] clothes swap running at [location] for [kids aged 6-11]!

[Link or URL] #StreetStore • On average, 1/3 of the clothes in our wardrobes haven’t been worn in the past year. Come along to our #StreetStore event and swap any high-quality unworn clothes for something new.

• Refresh your wardrobe for free at our #StreetStore event. Bring along any high-quality unworn clothes and swap them for something new. [Link or URL].

11

SHOULD I KEEP TRACK OF ANYTHING? Celebrating success and letting people know about the difference they have made is really important.

You can keep track of the amount of clothes you’ve swapped really easily by counting the number of items and/or weighing the items brought in.

Depending on how you run this you can either get parents to record this themselves when they bring clothes into swap or have a volunteer write it down as parents bring items in.

This will allow you to say how many items of clothing and weight of textiles you’ve prevented from going in the bin!

Let Hubbub know how you’re doing!

12

W H AT I F W E H A V E LEFTOVER TEXTILES? Visitors to Street Store should only be bringing high-quality clothes that don’t have any stains, rips, or functionality problems. A good rule of thumb when deciding if an item is fit for swapping is “if in doubt, leave it out”. This will mean the clothes on the rail are more likely to be taken to a new home.

However, if you have any clothes leftover after Street Store, you can donate them to a charity shop if they’re still in good condition or recycle in a recycling bank if they’re not in good condition.

Search for your nearest textiles bank here: https://www.recyclenow.com/what-to-do-with/ clothing-textiles-0.

Make sure you deduct the number of items recycled from your overall measurement.

13

THANK YOU! T H I S P R O J E C T W A S F U N D E D B Y N O R T H L O N D O N W A S T E A U T H O R I T Y.

W W W. H U B B U B . O R G . U K

REGISTERED CHARITY NO. 1158700

14