CHARITY SHOP FASHION WEEK TAKES CENTRE STAGE IN THE UK
By: Erica Commisso
While luxury designers take to the runway in cities like New York, Paris, London and Milan, a sustainable movement is strutting its stuff in Britain. Charity Shop Fashion Week runs from September 29 to October 5, with events and activations across England all designed to promote buying clothes from vintage stores - known as charity shops in the UK - and encouraging a more sustainable future in fashion.
“Charity shops are a great place to experiment with styling and finding the look that works best for your personality, but they also do amazing work in communities and support planet-friendly actions,” says Anna Pashley, who works in Corporate Partnerships for the Charity Retail Association, the group behind the initiative. “For example, UK charity shops keep over 300,000 tonnes of textile out of landfill every year and are supported by over 200,000 volunteers. We are seeing an emergence of social media influencers turning their attention to charity shopping, and we want more people to be sharing how they have styled their charity shop finds and help us spread the word about the incredible work staff and volunteers are doing in shops up and down the country.”
Source: Charity Shop Fashion Week website
The theme of this year’s Charity Shop Fashion Week is “Fashion, RECLAIMED!” and it encourages people to reuse, repurpose, re-love, repair, and reconnect. The week long initiative promotes charity shop goods by asking stores across the country to send in clothing they want highlighted as well as spotlighting styles and outfits that have been created using charity shop clothing and made unique. For example, the initiative will spotlight pieces purchased at a charity shop and then cut and tailored to create a unique look, or repaired to look and feel good as new.
“With over 10,000 charity shops operating in the UK, everyday people are supporting charities and the planet through sustainable shopping,” Pashley says. “Charity shops are a treasure trove, not just for everyday bargains, but for people to explore their own unique style in a safe and welcoming environment. Sponsored by The Hub Vintage Wholesale, Charity Shop Fashion Week aims to showcase and celebrate the pre-loved fashionista movement happening in communities across the country by sharing fashion forward content made local charity shops and shoppers alike. The campaign is week of inspiring social media posts celebrating our members’ sustainably creative talents, proving that amazing individual style doesn't need to cost the earth.”
Source: Charity Shop Fashion Week website
The initiative also finds event spaces in communities across England that are willing to offer a space to host events (like fashion shows, for example), and participants can send in their own social media posts to be featured on the channel throughout the week, all with the hope of creating more awareness around sustainability. “We were inspired to run charity shop fashion week as a complimentary campaign to Sustainable Fashion Week (SFW 2025),” Pashley says. “As vocal supporters of the Sustainable Fashion Week campaign, we thought we could add our own unique charity retail focus to complement their call to action, which this year is themed as Fashion: Reclaimed.”
Ultimately, Pashley says, the goal is simple: to create a more sustainable future in fashion, though she recognizes that it may not be one big, sweeping action that solves the problem. The solution, she realizes, can come in waves and serve multiple purposes. “We want to inspire everyone to get involved in charity retail. We want more charity shoppers, as well as the shops themselves, to join us in showing off their amazing fashion finds and help us promote sustainable shopping, supporting charities and giving back to the community and planet whilst looking great,” she says. “If one person sees our campaign and decides to check out their local charity shop, maybe even volunteer at their favorite shop, then we have made an impact.”