Look at your wardrobe and count how many clothes, scarves, shoes, and bags that you rarely use. A lot? It may mean that you have excess clothes than you don’t really need.
According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, about 73% of excess clothing will be thrown to landfilled or will be incinerated. A famous quote by Marc Jabobs has said, “clothes mean nothing until someone lives in them.” While we are having excess clothes, there are people who haven’t changed their clothes for three years.
This situation has lead Andie Halas, a former fashion industry insider to open a boutique and “selling” clothes for free. The idea came after she had seen people at the Asylum Seekers Centre to rummage through donated boxes searching for clothing they could use.
Halas who also has a background on marketing realized how much waste fashion companies did on the end-of-line stock. Some studies found that about one-third of the clothing produced by some branded companies are never sold. This gave an idea to Halas to take those new clothes from fashion companies and send them to the center.
In 2012, Halas founded Thread Together to provide new, free clothes for people who are in need of new clothes. The target for the boutique is to refugees and asylum seekers. She also aimed to help people experiencing homelessness or fleeing domestic violence.
The concept of Thread Together is like any other boutique, except that everything is free. The clients who wish to buy clothes in the boutique (for free), has to be referred by the organization’s charity and social service partners. All stocks in the boutique were donated from Australian brands that include end-of-line, unsold, and excess stock.
Source: The Guardian