The TinyLife & School Gate Style Clothes Swap – 23rd September 2014

Ever wondered how a Clothes Swap/Swish works or wanted to go along to one? Have you got lots of lovely items in your wardrobe that you don’t wear anymore?

Well come along to the Malone Lodge Hotel, Belfast on the 23rd September and be part of the most stylish swishing event to hit the city…all while supporting local charity TinyLife, the premature baby charity for Northern Ireland.

So how will it work? Well, on the night, you bring along up to 3 items that you are willing to swap. These can include footwear and accessories.

You’ll be given casino chips in exchange and invited to go upstairs to have a drink, chat with your friends and browse the stalls that will have a wide range of beauty and fashion items to try and buy.

After a bit of a style session from me where I’ll share some of the key trends this AW14 and my own advice for getting the most out of a clothes swap party,  you will head back downstairs to the swap room where rails will be set up in item & size order, i.e. skirts/tops/coats etc.

Simply pick three replacement items, cash in your chips and voila! New clothes for your wardrobe without any guilt…only the satisfaction of knowing you helped an amazing charity in the process.

But before all that, you need to book a ticket for the event and these are limited as we can only cope with so many pieces of clothing on the night. The tickets are £12 with all proceeds going directly to the charity. In fact, the only cost to the charity of running the event is room hire, which has been generously discounted by the Malone Lodge. Everyone else is donating their time for free and that includes a large team of volunteers who will be sorting & hanging all the clothing as they arrive.

You can get your ticket by emailing me on [email protected] OR by phoning the Tiny Life offices on 028 9081 5050.

Now here’s the important bit….once you have your ticket and you’re deciding what to swap, please bear these rules in mind for the items you bring with you..

• Items can include footwear, accessories and handbags as well as all items of clothing.
• Everything should be autumn/winter appropriate, clean, in good condition, lightly worn and no more than a few seasons old…though for classic items like trenchcoats/pencil skirts/white shirts etc, the age is less of an issue.
• Ideally, swaps work better with items that are mid-high street level & higher so Next, M&S, Zara and upwards as opposed to Primark and supermarket brands.
• As a general rule, bring along items that given the time and the inclination, you’d have eBay’ed or given into consignment….so they’re items that you invested in and like but just don’t seem to get the wear out of or don’t suit you.
• The better the items that everyone brings, the better the chance that everyone will find something they love to take home with them.
• Bring all sizes – as there will be women of all sizes attending! Perfect chance to off-load items that don’t fit you any more.

Sound simple enough?! I hope so. If you’ve any questions, please ask in the comments below or send me a message. Additionally, if you’d like to take a stall at the event, let me know as there are a couple still available.

Finally, if you’re not local but would like to support the event, do let me know via email. We have already sold some tickets to people who can’t attend but want to support it - thank you to all of you who’ve done that to date. It’s greatly appreciated.

Here’s the official flyer and if you can put one of these up in your local school/shop/business, please let me know and I’ll post some out to you. Thank you everyone for your support – so excited about the evening and hope to meet lots of you there.

Ax