We direct garments in need of minor repair away from recycling and instead towards resale.
Our Mishap Fashion range takes a pioneering approach to garments that charity shops cannot typically resell, simply by ‘rebranding’ items that have a minor ‘mishap’, such as a missing button, a broken zipper or a dropped hem, which might otherwise be in very good condition.
By offering these items on a special rail with the ‘mishap’ identified, shoppers still have the chance to buy that item and give it a new lease of life rather than allow it to go to rag.
Simple fixes make great solutions
A flourishing culture of fixing has sprung up in recent years, encouraging those looking for a new-to-them garment not to turn their nose up at items that might need a small repair to be perfectly wearable.
Devon Air Ambulance is supporting shoppers who aren’t put off by such mishaps by offering space at a fixing table in the Barnstaple Community Hub, a fantastic community space for stitching and making with other fashion enthusiasts.
Saving items for resale means helping to save lives
In the first few months of the Mishap Fashion label’s launch, there has been great success with over 3,000 items being sold, bringing in over £10k of sales from garments that may have otherwise gone to waste.
Crudely, if each item on average weighed 1kg, the charity would have brought in only about £1,080 from selling those garments overseas in bulk, so we’ve realised value in items to a factor of ten times what we could have achieved through recycling!
That additional value makes a real difference to our bottom line and to the patients we serve.
The Mishap Fashion Range is sold in our Exeter, Plymouth and Barnstaple stores.
