Living lightly: ‘The charity shop is becoming almost like a dump for a lot of people’

Instead of dumping our clothes, and our guilt, in a charity shop we need to focus on better ways to give new life to them, from hand-me-downs to swap shops and upcycling

Pat Kane, founder of sustainable store reuzi.ie. Photograph by: Eva Blake

Liadán Hayes

I cracked. It was unintentional, unplanned, and, oddly, it took me a day to realise what had actually happened. Six months into my Living Lightly project of no fashion shopping for a year, I bought something.

“How’s the not buying anything going?” people would ask. I, smugly, would reply: “Not a bother. When you own as many clothes as I do, and you stop to take account, it feels embarrassing to buy more.” Pride, fall, etc.