Second hand, not second best: How our school’s zero budget, pre-loved fashion event raised €7,500

Last March, with five other working mothers, we raised big bucks running a pre-loved fashion event (for parents and teachers) through our kids’ school.  We did it with no budget and a lot of calling in favours and begging time from other parents and friends. 

To be fair, we weren’t pushing at a closed door. There was already a gathering momentum around sustainability in the school – the Halloween costume and Christmas jumper swaps are eagerly anticipated events. Parents bring in the gear their kids have grown out of and it’s a fun, free way for little ones to grab something different and new-to-them without adding to worn-once synthetic waste.  At the end of the summer term, there’s a uniform swap: a win for cash-strapped parents looking for a sized-up jumper and a tiny reduction in our collective clothing footprint. 

Then there are extracurricular events and parties. Smart parents figured out years ago that joint parties between classmates with close-together birthdays were more affordable and inclusive. If classmates want to gift the birthday kids, €5 in a card (typically handmade) is suggested – which is much better than twenty-plus piles of plastic playthings and reams of wrapping paper.  

The pre-loved fashion event (for grown-ups) began as a wisp of an idea, sparked by hearing Bay Garnett talk about her sponsorship of Oxfam’s SecondHand September campaign combined with a call out from the school’s Parents’ Committee for fundraising suggestions.

As someone with an abiding affection for elegant, pre-loved clothing (for my wedding, I wore a vintage dress, with one grandmother’s white gloves and the other’s blue brooch), Bay’s encapsulation of the campaign really resonated for me.  

Second hand, not second best

Our often unconscious expectations of our clothes are sky-high. There’s functionality and performance, for sure, but also an outward expression of style, personality and who we aspire to be. We’ve all known the dopamine rush of finding a new top/dress/the perfect pair of jeans and how swiftly it wears off. Research shows that the thrill lasts longer when we buy second hand.  

There’s a myriad of possible reasons for this; the high of bagging a coveted garment for a fraction of the cost, the appreciation of owning that unique one-off piece, the bragging rights, and feel-good-factor that come with a more exclusive and eco-conscious approach to fashion.  

There’s an awareness too, to differing degrees, of the uncomfortable challenge at the heart of fast fashion. Clothing production has doubled while the lifetime expectancy of a garment/ its usage has decreased. Every second, the equivalent of a rubbish truckload of clothes is burnt or buried in landfill. Sharing and re-wearing clothes, by acquiring second hand, is one way of mitigating the negative biodiversity impacts.

Over a series of quick coffees, before we hurried to work, our group agreed that we wanted this pre-loved fashion event to be glamorous. We didn’t want it to be about rifling through donated clothes in the school hall, instead, we envisioned a fabulous night out, a chance to connect with other parents and friends, all the while showcasing a selection of new-to-you clothes.

When we reached out to our school network, a gang of creators and collaborators came on board and helped the evolving event take shape and pace. This included the parent, a graphics guru, who created a striking online event flyer, the friend with retail contacts who sourced rails and hangers, the contact who instantly upped the glamour quotient by getting us a space to host the event in the sustainable Wren Hotel.

A shout-out too to the many parents, shuffling from foot to foot on spectre-grey January and February mornings, waiting at school drop off to collect the donated clothes. There were a lot of donations. Bag after bag was handed over, usually by one of the mothers and always with a story attached; the fabulous dress worn once to a wedding that no longer fit, the elegant work attire and fabulous shoes redundant in home offices, the sales regrets with tags still on. 

It was a ticketed event, €25 with a drink thrown in, and we deliberately kept the donated clothes’ prices low. Three of our working group had already sifted through all the donations categorising similar items and noting what was particularly good quality. We had a lot of support along the way from parents and friends and it was important to us as a group that the event reflected this effort. On the day itself, all six of us took time off work and, in a bijou bedroom in the Wren, steamed, ironed and hung all the items on rails. One of the group added beautifully hand-written labels with category descriptions and suggested prices.  

By the time we’d transported the rails into the lift and set them up in our space, the first trickle of people had arrived. It was a late night with a lot of laughing – the kind that can only happen when groups of women squeeze into a small-ish bathroom to pull on and off tops, dresses, skirts, trousers for the group’s honest feedback. Armloads and stuffed bags full of clothes were sold. All remaining items were brought to charity shops the next day.

As well as raising a huge amount of money – the total sum came to €7,500 – it was a huge amount of fun. However, what’s been most impactful is how the event rid any lingering bias toward second hand shopping. It showcased to attendees the power and potential of circular and sustainable fashion. Second hand is our new black.