Have too many clothes in your wardrobe but feel like you still have nothing to wear? Try out this 3 step solution to help declutter and refill your wardrobe without the burden on your wallet from shopping at full-priced retail and online stores.
Step 1 aims to re-channel some of the clothes lying in the dark depths of your wardrobe getting dusty into clothing funds that you can use productively to refresh your look without tapping into the new month’s salary or pocket money. Here are some ways you can do so based on increasing level of effort required on your end:
“Turns your closet into cash”. With such a promise, how can you not give it a try? Selling on Refash is simple, where all you just need to upload a photo of your item, describe it and set your price. Refash will handle everything else, from editing your photo to make it more marketable, overall marketing and promotions, shipping and returns etc.
This works only if you are a H&M fan and intend to refresh your wardrobe with new H&M collections. For every bag of unwanted clothes you donate to H&M (at any outlet), they will give you a $10 voucher to use on your next purchase (this was as of Dec 2016). This programme has been running from 2013, but with slight variations across the years as to what donors get in return, so do check with your nearest outlet.
I have a love-hate relationship with Carousell. While it is a great platform for anyone to sell anything, literally anything (I’ve sold at least 10-15 items on the platform), there are the low-ballers and rude buyers to contend with.
Flea Market
The more common flea markets that accept pre-loved clothes for sale are *Scape and Lucky Plaza. Based on friends’ first hand experiences, fleas can get really crazy at times, with lots of intense haggling, and standing the whole day to man the store etc. This is definitely the option that requires the most effort on your part to get rid of your clothes, but definitely the fastest (especially if you have luggages worth).
Step 2 helps if you are not too interested in raising new shopping funds and want to get right into the getting new clothes portion. With clothes swapping, your pre-loved clothes basically can be exchanged for other people’s pre-loved clothes. It is modern day barter trading. Different events do it differently, so make sure you understand the rules for swapping before you start.
Singapore’s first online fashion swapping platform, organizes monthly Swapaholic events where members (who pay a nominal fee based on the number of clothes they expect to swap) get their pick for the day. On special months, influencers and fashion icons will join in the swaps too.
Girlfriends or Co-workers clothes swap party
I absolutely love the idea of this. Pencil in a girls day or lunch time with the colleagues, bring all your clothes you have not worn in ages, and start swapping with your friends. Although this works only if the people you are swapping with are of similar sizes and have similar fashion taste.
Step 3 sounds counter-intuitive but trust me it is not. This involves buying at much less than retail selling prices. There are several places in Singapore that are great for pre-loved clothes shopping (sometimes they have clothes still with tags on). Check out some of the suggested ones below for super discounted yet quality clothing finds.
Sounds familiar? Yes, because Refash is not only a platform for selling your pre-loved clothes, it also sells them – both online and offline (so you can try out the various pieces in store). There are at least two outlets in town, PoMo and Orchard Gateway, and they look just like any other blogshop store, except they sell at probably 40%-60% less than retail price. They typically have a good % of top blog shop clothes, hence I love to shop there – it is just too good a deal to pass on. One of my favorite buy is a gorgeous Love Bonito dress from previous collections for only $15 when retail probably goes for $40+.
MINDS (Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore) runs 5 flagship thrift stores across Singapore, where each store carries a unique range of carefully selected furniture, clothes, collectibles and house wares that is constantly updated. By shopping at MINDS Shop, you not only empower workers in the store through meaningful work engagement, you are also doing your part to save the environment! So why not give it a try!
PraiseHaven Thrift Shop by the Salvation Army
Heard of the Salvation Army? Most likely. Heard of PraiseHaven Thrift Shop? Alot less likely. This mega thrift store is essentially like a warehouse where Salvation Army sells off the donations that goes to them. And plenty of donations come in the form of clothing. So shop to your hearts delight!
And viola. By the time you completed the 3 steps above, you should have a relatively refreshed wardrobe, did your part in helping to reduce fashion landfill and also not burdened your wallet with shopping expenses for the month 🙂
If you have any more great suggestions or ways to help refresh the wardrobe, do write in (citygirlat65@gmail.com) and share your ideas with me!
65citygirl 