Clothing Swap: Gateway to Sustainable Eco-friendly Fashion

Abstract

New fibers, eco-friendly sustainable processes, and products are making their presence felt in the fashion market in the last few years. Reduce, reuse, and recycle (R³) are the three essential concepts of any eco-friendly activity. The concept behind the first “R,” reduce, is that one should limit the number of purchases that he/she makes in the first place. The concept behind the second “R,” reuse, is that one should reuse items as much as possible before replacing them. The concept behind the third “R,” recycle, is that one should ensure that items or their components are used for a new purpose as much as possible when it reaches the “end-of-use” stage. “Clothing swap” process is a type of reuse strategy for the fashionable and high fashion garments. It is a type of meet in person or online to exchange valued used clothing ranging from vintage fashion to luxurious items between individuals. These swap meetings work in a concept of “new-to-him/her.” It is totally an environmentally friendly process of getting access to new-to-him/her clothing instead of the new product purchase. As luxurious clothing, accessories are swapped; it reduces the load on the environment by extending the lifetime of the products. Clothing swap helps people to understand the difference between “end-of-use” and “end-of-life” items and tries to get maximum utilization of “end-of-use” items.

This chapter discusses about the origin of clothing swap and how it contributes to eco-friendly fashion and for the growth of sharing economy. The growth of online clothing swap and its effect on reducing carbon footprints are discussed at length. Clothing swap’s role in enhancing sustainability and promoting eco-friendliness among apparel users is highlighted. This chapter will give an insight into clothing swap process, its importance, and various events of clothing swaps like swap meets, parties, online swaps, and swap boutiques. It apprises the role of clothing swap events in bringing the fashionable clothing for all classes of people to use, wherein individuals exchange their clothing in an eco-friendly sustainable way. The chapter also throws light on how landfills and excessive water usage for garments processing can be avoided because of clothing swap thereby leading to eco-friendly environment.