Clothes Swap Brings a Sharing Economy to the Shopping Centre

Blog by Franki Appleton

The Wheel Project Manager

What’s a better bargain than the January sales, and better for the planet? Community clothes swaps of course! 

When you hear that people are making their way to their local shopping centre on a cold and rainy January evening, you might imagine they are planning to hit the January sales. But as more and more people become aware of the environmental harms of fast fashion and ultra-fast fashion, many are looking for more sustainable and circular ways to enjoy starting the year with some fresh outfits. 

Why swap instead of shop?

The fashion industry is the world’s second largest polluter, second only to the oil industry. This is partly to do with harmful practices used in the farming of some cottons, or the use of oil to make polyester, and partly to do with the mass overproduction and overconsumption of garments. Fast fashion has been shown to be harmful to people manufacturing the clothes, to the land used to farm the raw materials, and to the waterways polluted with pesticides and dyes used in the manufacturing process. And yet here in the UK we still buy more new clothes than any other country in Europe.   

Part of the solution is to be mindful of the new clothes we buy and the sustainable practices of the brand, but there is another, even more environmentally friendly solution: Swap what has already been made, opting for “new-t0-you” instead. By using the clothes that are already in existence and extending the life of those clothes, we lessen the need for new clothing to be created. We can make a huge impact by wearing pre-loved items.

The obvious and immediate benefit to swapping clothes is financial. We are living through a cost of living crisis, and so sharing items among the community becomes all the more important for many people. This activity also helps us to connect to others in the community, getting to know our neighbours and seeing what beautiful items they have to share.  

The Wheel Clothes Swap - How does it work? 

Right in the middle of the Wimbledon Quarter shopping centre, we hosted our first clothes swap event of 2026. People registered to attend and bring along a maximum of five items of women's clothes, shoes and/ or accessories they wanted to swap. People made sure their items were clean and in good condition (thinking about what condition they would want to swap for). Our brilliant volunteers checked in everyone’s items and gave a token for each item added to the swap. People could then browse the gorgeous clothes and spend their tokens on a “new-to-you” item that someone else had brought along! 

Once swaps had been chosen, we weighed each item so we can measure how much clothing we have kept in circulation together.  In only two hours 84 items of clothing were swapped. That amounted to 29 kg of clothing being kept in circulation. 

The remaining items that weren’t chosen this time have been placed in storage and will be offered up during the next clothes swap event. We plan to host a clothes swap every season (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter) as part of our mission to bringing a circular economy to Merton.

Our future clothes swap events will be listed on the Sustainable Merton website. We hope to see you at the next one!