Get Rummaging
WORDS: Yasmin Begum (Sprout Editorial Group)
Since the credit crunch, I have been looking for alternative methods to look good on a budget.
Unemployment on the rise, a lack of jobs, imminent redunancy...?
If you want more doom and gloom on the current economic status, visit the?BBC?or some other informative news website. It's not my place to bring you depressing statistics.
Here's my suggestion, and let me finish before you make up your minds. Two words: charity shops.
What springs to mind? Is it old ladies sorting through outrageous orange floral frocks in various shades of beige, with Oldies FM on the radio? Crusty hippies wearing rowdly red jumpers, buying even more embarrassing jumpers?
Well, I am pleased to tell you ladies and gentlemen, that the stereotypes are wrong. Hurrah!
Charity shops have seen a huge rise in sales to 7.4%, leading to the grand total of over a hundred billion quid a year.
It seems with the credit crunch that shoppers are turning away from traditional retail shops and heading to their local charity store.
The biggest increase was seen by The Salvation Army, which saw its profits increase by 74%, whereas larger, more popular stores (on the whole) saw their profits dive by 1%.
Dressing great on a budget is possible. Second hand and charity shops boast a wide range of clothing at pocket-money prices.
People from all walks of life and ages donate to their local charity shop. A predominant reason for this is that one million tonnes of textiles are dumped into landfill sites in the UK, with a mind-boggling 80% of that being fine to recycle and turn into new clothing. So not only is it cheap, but it's better for the planet.
Many people I know have donated their clothes to charity, and due to contrary belief (my mate who shall go unnamed, and David's Walliam's character on Little Britain) people probably didn't die in them!
You're likely to find some weird and wonderful stuff in your local charity shop, especially for those with retro tastes.
The things you can find trawling the clothing rails is unbelievable. I've found mint Levi and Diesel jeans, 60s Twiggy-style sunglasses, mod coats. . . Recently I even picked up a Laura Ashley polka-dot dress for 50p.
It can be a bit hit and miss, but then again isn't going shopping in town exactly the same? Cardiff boasts many a charity shop, there are at least a dozen on Cowbridge Road East including Oxfam, Scope and Cancer Research, as well as around another dozen on the other side of Cardiff on Albany Road stretching over to Wellfield Road.
It's not only clothes you can find within charity shops. Saint Mary's Street's Oxfam sells exclusively CDs, DVDs, records and books, not to mention the usual glory of Fairtrade chocolate and ethically made notepads.
You know what they say, one man's trash is another man's glory. Be good to yourself, be good to the planet, be good to charity and get low priced clothes.
