The Second-Hand Clothing Market and How to Incorporate Upcycled Textiles Into Your Business, with Oxfam
Elen Newcombe-Ling
Monday, 12 August 2019
Have you ever wondered how you can begin to incorporate second-hand textiles into your business? Or wondered where all the clothes that get donated to charity shops actually go?
In this video, we chat to Elen Newcombe-Ling, Private Sector Partnerships Manager at Oxfam GB, about the second-hand clothing industry. We discover how Oxfam processes all their textile donations, the positive social and environmental impacts of the second-hand market, and how to start to incorporate second-hand textiles into your design business.
In this lesson, you will learn:
- About how the second-hand clothing market has changed
- How Oxfam distributes second-hand clothing
- What happens to the excess clothing donated to charity shops
- How partnerships with retail giants are supporting social and environmental causes
- About the impact of donations sent to third-world countries
- If you can incorporate second-hand clothing into a design business at scale
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How Trends Impact Fashion Brands
with Charlie Bradley RossRead More...Summary
Crucial to our understanding of the market and our customer’s preferences, trends drive every industry in the world. And nowhere else can the direct correlation between trend forecasts and decision-making be seen more clearly than in the fast-paced world of fashion.
Even the words “trend” and “fashion” are synonyms of the other, denoting a surge in popularity for a particular product, style, or behaviour. Throughout the history of fashion, experts have debated the direction of influence in the phenomenon of clothing trends - does cause and effect work in a “trickle down” or a “bubble up” motion? Are designers influenced by what they see on the streets, or do people make their choices based on what they see in fashion marketing and stores?
Whatever direction you believe this influence moves in, the driver for changes in trends is an underlying power to shift opinion, and in time, encourage people to take action. Brands with the ability to predict what might cause the shift will, therefore, give themselves a competitive edge.