Change Clothes Crumlin is a new, creative clothing reuse hub in Dublin, Ireland. We're creating a social community space for swapping, upcycling, mending, borrowing, learning, and meeting like-minded people. Everyone is welcome to take part in our events.
Our work in Crumlin includes:
- Running clothing swap shops
- Holding creative clothing upcycling and mending workshops
- Building a borrowing solution
- Creating accessible social space for learning more
www.changeclothes.org
Local
Ireland
Crumlin, Dublin 12, Dublin, Ireland
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Change Clothes Crumlin Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Mary Last name of representative: Fleming Gender: Other Nationality: Ireland If relevant, please select your other nationality: Ireland Function: Founder / CEO Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 299 Kildare Road Town: Crumlin Postal code: D12 TW2A Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 85 144 5139 E-mail:mary@changeclothes.org Website:http://www.changeclothes.org
At Change Clothes Crumlin, Dublin, Ireland. We're building a social community space for clothes swapping, upcycling, mending, learning, and meeting like-minded people in the Crumlin area. Crumlin is a working-class area in the South East Inner City of Dublin. Everyone is welcome to take part in our events!
We do this by:
> Running large clothing exchange events
> Providing regular creative clothing upcycling workshops
> Offering clothes mending advice and a range of materials for taking home to work on DIY projects
> Building our clothes borrowing offering and service
We do all of this to make sustainable fashion both visible and affordable in the Crumlin community, re-learn useful mending skills now lost to a generation, tackle the problem of social isolation in a post-covid world, and finally, to reduce the amount of clothing going to landfill.
With the cost of living sky-rocketing, and a climate crisis hanging over our heads, we need to think of solutions that benefit local communities as
well as the wider world we’re living in. We know modern fashion production is having a catastrophic impact on the environment and the people who are paid slave wages to produce it.
Mass produced fashion ends up being the most affordable, but fast fashion and the people who buy it have often been vilified. We
can’t expect to change hearts and minds to second-hand overnight, especially by telling people that they’re doing something wrong. In the
midst of this Cost of Living Crisis, it's essential that we encourage the true value of sharing, saving much needed money, and building community.
The idea of Change Clothes Crumlin is to create a welcoming clothing reuse hub that also serves as a social and learning space. In 2023, our goal is to build on the swapping and upcycling services we've been offering locally and create an additional community clothes borrowing solution, with a long-term goal of opening up a permanent clothing reuse hub in the area.
Sustainability
Inclusivity
Socialising
Fun
Creativity
Article 11.1 of the revised EU Waste Framework Directive (WFD) obliges Member States to set up separate collection for textiles from 1 January 2025, which will lead to significant changes in the Irish second hand textiles sector. Textiles are a key priority area in the EU Circular Economy Action Plan 2.0 in which the Commission proposes to develop a “comprehensive EU strategy” aimed at stimulating the market for circular textiles. This new focus on textiles is due to emerging information about the unsustainable nature of the sector.
Additionally, Ireland’s first Whole of Government Circular Economy Strategy, published in 2021, provides a national policy framework for Ireland’s transition to a circular economy. The Circular Economy Act 2022 a;so places the Circular Economy Strategy, and Ireland’s commitment to a circular economy. The Act defines the Circular Economy for the first time in Irish domestic law. It incentivises the use of reusable and recyclable alternatives to a range of wasteful single use disposable packaging and other items.
Change Clothes Crumlin exists to educate the Crumlin community about the Circular Economy and how it can improve their lives, as per the third key objective of the Whole of government Circular Economy Strategy.
With our first pilot programme in Q4 in 2023, we achieved the following results:
> 354 event attendees
> 97 DIY repair kits made
>1,239 clothing swaps made
> 53 clothing items upcycled at workshops
> An estimated 19.38 tonnes saved in just 3 short months
19.38 carbon tonnes saved looks like:
> 38 petrol cars running for a year
> Driving 116,280 km in a Diesel car
> 50 flights from Amsterdam to Rome
> 1,395 rail trips from Amsterdam to Paris
> 2,357,441 smart phones charged
As such, we believe our project to be exemplary in the context of community based climate action in education.
From a design perspective, one of the key objectives of Change Clothes Crumlin is to make the concept of second hand clothing attractive through our modern branding. We made a conscious choice not to opt for 'typically' environmental brand tropes, and instead, went for a bold look that might speak a bit more to the colourful world we live in. Our branding guidelines can be viewed in the attached documents. These can be seen in action across our digital media presence (see our website and socials at www.changeclothes.org and at our clothing reuse events, which we have included a range of photos of.
In terms of quality of experience, our regular community based reuse events always consist of a clothing swapping element and a separate educational element that can range from simple upcycling, to learning how to sew and knit. To date, we have been fortunate to work with a number of high quality collaborators on delivering creative educational content. Partners have included the National College of Art and Design (Dublin) and Recreate Dublin (a creative reuse social enterprise).
Clothing reuse events are meticulously organised, volunteers from the community are trained in all activities and attendees frequently comment on how well organised they are considering how busy they have been.
It is a key part of our mission to communicate positivity and easily accessible alternatives to fast fashion. We put 'fun' and 'money saving' at the front of our communications, as we do not wish to make the local community feel as though climate change is their direct fault. Rather, we present a fun, affordable social opportunity that also happens to be sustainable.
You can see evidence of this messaging in our recent interview with RTE, Ireland's State Broadcaster: https://www.rte.ie/news/dublin/2022/1210/1340744-clothing-swap-shop/
And another interview on RTE Radio: https://www.rte.ie/radio/podcasts/22179087-christmas-jumper-workshop/
Change Clothes Crumlin exists to serve the Crumlin Community, an area made of of low-income housing that was originally created by Dublin City Corporation in the 1940's and 50's to house families living in tenament slums in the City Centre. Attached to this application is a screenshot of Pobal's Deprivation Index 2016, sorted by 'small area'. The Screenshot of Crumlin shows the majority of the area in a shade of orange which represents households deemed as 'disadvantaged'.
We put affordability at the front and centre of our work. For large reuse events (these include swap shops and upcycling/mending/making elements), the pricing structure is as follows:
> €5: general entry
> €3: 65 years+ / third-level students / unemployed
> Free: Children under 12 years of age
> All ticket prices allow access to the swap (where attendees can swap an unlimited number of clothing items) and access to the upcycling/mending/making option
Our events are open to all genders and ages. We have had attendees ranging in age from 4 weeks old to 80+ years of age. We believe Change Clothes Crumlin to be one of the few places in the community where people of all ages can socialise and learn from each other. This has been evidenced by attendees from older generations sharing their upcycling, mending and making skills with younger generations in a free-flowing, unorganised manner.
We ensure that all of our communications are written in Plain English, and that all videos are subtitled so that all audiences can understand what we're trying to put across.
Change Clothes Crumlin has also recently filed with the Irish Company Registrations office as a Company Limited by Guarantee. Our constitution ensures that:
A) No shareholders can make a profit from our activities (we have voluntary Directors)
B) Our activities must be carried on for the benefit of the public.
C) We will not engage in activities which result in benefit to private individuals and/or commercial entities.
How citizens from the Crumlin area have been involved to date:
> Volunteering: citizens have been volunteering with the smooth running of event
> Steering Committee: local people have also made up our voluntary steering committee which initially met once a month to guide us with the pilot project in Q4 of 2022
> Donating: the success of our events has very much depended on local people donating high quality clothing for swapping
> Spreading the word: word of mouth (i.e. local people telling others about our work) has been key to communicating our events
> Attending events, swapping clothing: 354 people attended our events in Q4 of 2022 and made 1,239 swaps. They also upcycled 53 items of clothing
> Skill sharing at events: a number of people from the community have kindly shared their repair and upcycling skills are our events
The impact their involvement has had on the initiative has been central to our development. By supplying valuable feedback on our community offerings, their support has given us motivation to do more as an organisation and potentially expand into other communities once we perfect the model in Crumlin.
Going forward, we'd like the community to be more involved in the following ways:
> Increased uptake of upskilling opportunities
> Increased skill sharing between community members
> We hope to be able to provide increased, meaningful volunteering opportunities
> And we would like to provide employment opportunities to marginalised people in circular economy activities
During the design stage of the initiative, we engaged people at local and regional level by:
> Presenting the initial idea to a panel of local Counsellors, Politicians, and Regional Authority employees for questions and feedback
> Set up a voluntary Steering Committee made up of local people to get feedback on our plans as they were developed
> Engaged local organisations such as ReCreate Ireland and the National College of Art and Design to collaborate on upcycling workshops and an exhibition of upcycled clothing
During the implementation phase of the initiative, we have:
> Consistently asked for feedback from local people following our events and kept lines of communications open
At National level, we have to date:
> Written to the Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) concerning his public support of a fast fashion chain
> Made an application to become a member of the Community Resources Network Ireland so that we can network with and learn from other social enterprises in the circular space
> Received funding and support from Creative Ireland to pilot the project in Q4 of 2022
> Engaged the Department of the Environment, Climate & Communications regarding funding opportunities
We have yet to engage with stakeholders at European level, however, we hope to do the following as we roll our 2023 programme out:
> Join the RREUSE network so that we can learn from other social enterprises in the circular economy space
> Engage other European wide funders regarding opportunities for development and ongoing feedback
The following knowledge fields have reflected in the design and implementation of our initiative to date:
1. Climate science (Climate Action Regional Authorities, other stakeholders with qualifications in climate science)
2. Local knowledge (Local citizens)
3. Creative knowledge (Creative Ireland, National College of Art & Design, ReCreate Ireland)
4. Local Government (Local Counsellors and politicians)
During the design phase representatives interacted with each other in the following ways:
> All knowledge fields came together to review the project at the design stage
> All stakeholders had the opportunity to ask questions and give input from their perspective
Throughout the implementation phase, representatives from each field have interacted with each other by:
> Local citizens gave feedback on the impact they believed the project was having to climate scientists carrying out surveys in behalf of our pilot funders (Creative Ireland) In turn, climate scientists/researchers obtained useful local knowledge and perspective.
> Creative and climate knowledge was shared with local citizens through the clothing reuse events that we held (and continue to hold)
> Through the demand for these events, and witnessing them firsthand, local government have become aware of the need for greater clothing reuse education and services in the Crumlin area.
The added value of this process was:
> A wide range of knowledge fields being reflected meant wider ranging support for the initiative
> It also meant that we felt as though what we were putting forward was not going to appeal to just one type of person, but many.
To our knowledge, there are no other community based organisations raising awareness around swapping and borrowing clothes as a fun, affordable, and sustainable alternative to buying new. Change Clothes Crumlin is very much built on community sharing and building bonds, something which is not immediately obviously in:
A: Businesses working in the clothing reuse space such as Thriftify (IRL) Nu (IRL) Depop (UK) Etsy (USA)
B: Social enterprises working in the clothing reuse space such as The Roscommon Women's Network's 'CycleUp' project (IRL) and the Rediscovery Centre (IRL)
C: Charities working in the clothing reuse space
The act of clothing swapping presents a very unique opportunity to speak to people in the community about the value of their clothes. One thing we would like to do with Change Clothes Crumlin is give swap tokens to people based on the durability and repairability of their clothing items. For example, if an organic cotton top is handed over you get 3 swap tokens. If a mixed-synthetics top is handed over you get 1 swap token. There is potential to link what we're doing in with the EU's work on the Sustainable Productive Initiative in this context.
Apart from the general swap shops and upcycling/repair workshops that we run, having time and space to have detailed discussions on what clothing is made of and what that means in terms of an items value has huge potential to change consumption behaviours in a very simple and easily accessible way.
Unlike other circular fashion initiatives which exist solely online, Change Clothes exists in the real word to embrace all ages. We have a huge mix of ages attending our swap shops, and learning from each other at upcycling and mending events.
Change Clothes Crumlin is an affordable and accessible sustainable clothing and education solution in a working class area that will experience the effects of climate change first and worst in Ireland.
The entire organisational model could be transferred elsewhere. Including:
> The large clothing exchange events
> The creative clothing upcycling workshops
> Offering clothes mending advice and a range of materials for taking home to work on DIY projects
> The borrowing service
It is our hope that once we perfect the model in Crumlin, Dublin, we can look at brining this initiative to other disadvantaged areas in Ireland that would benefit from the service.
Our approach is inclusive teaching. We try to cultivate a learning environment where everyone is treated equitably, has equal access to learning, and feels valued and supported in their sustainability journey.
We do this by:
> Getting to know attendees and letting them get to know us
> Creating a safe space for students to share
> Inviting people to share their stories
> Delivering instruction in a variety of ways (visual, digital, spoken)
> Choosing relevant, accessible literature to accompany the instructions
1. Responsible Consumption and Production
> We provide education and awareness raising through our workshops and swap events.
2. Climate Action
> We calculate the amount of carbon saved from our large clothes swapping events and share publicly.
3. Poverty
> We provide an affordable sustainable clothing option locally that can be replicated anywhere
4. Quality Education
> We provide inclusive education to people in a disadvantaged area that empowers them to make better decisions and create their own clothing
5. Gender Equality
> We know that the majority of fast fashion workers are women who are underpaid and underworked, and we are working locally to raise awareness around this and change people's mind sets
Please see our '2022 Impact Report' attached for a run down of progress made in 2022.
In 2023, we hope to at least triple this impact, but we expect the figures to be much higher than this given progress made to date.
Our 2023-2025 development goals include the following key objectives:
1. Embed circular fashion in Crumlin
-Run neighbourhood clothing exchanges
-Provide creative upcycling workshops
-Build a borrowing service
-Make mending advice and tools available
-Offer social + learning events
2.Promote circular fashion in Crumlin
-Create local, on-the-ground interventions
-Work with local partners
-Continue digital campaign work
-Contribute to Irish policy where appropriate
-Liaise with local and national media
3. Build our capacity to expand
-Identify potential long-term partnerships
-Decide on a legal structure that works for our needs
-Identify core funders who match our values
