Bangkok Clothes Swap Event Huge Success With Female Expats

For female expats brought up with the concept of charity shops, swap shops and other varieties of the genre, these regular Bangkok events are an unqualified success.

Swap Till You Drop, the inspirational brainchild of US expatriates Jessica and Rivera Teal, is approaching its fifth birthday in the Thai capital, having started at Teal’s home and later transferring to the mega-city’s The Home BKK co-working space. Their latest draw is Fashion Revolution Week, beginning Monday and including two fashion swap days – Tuesday at We Work and Saturday at Model Market. The rest of the week will be taken up with free seminars covering aspects of green fashion as well as various talks.

As in many other world capitals, fast fashion is a major contribution to Thailand’s mountains of waste, made worse by the fact that almost 50 per cent of Thai fashionistas throw their outfits out after just one wear. Some shoppers get second thoughts about their purchases and dump them before wearing them at all. Swap Till You Drop asks women to bring their unwanted outfits to their events, with those unsold or unswapped later donated to the Scholars of Sustenance charity. T

he founders believe the fashion trade accounts for one of the largest amounts of waste in the world, and are more than happy to keep providing the social aspect of the events as it’s fun watching former owners of items chatting with those who’re now trying them on. Fashion designers enjoy attending and offering advice on how to revamp outdated quality clothes, finding ingenious alternatives for dated designs. The vast majority of attendees at the events are, unsurprisingly, expats, as the call for recycling and re-using hasn’t quite reached the ears of upscale Thai buyers.