Clothes Swishing

Clothes Swishing

Our lovely supporter Olivia Clark is a regular Clothes Swisher and here tells us all about Swishing and how to do it!

What is swishing?

“Swishing” is a clothes swapping event. It’s a really fun event where you bring your unwanted, good-quality clothing or accessories to swap for some new and exciting updates to your wardrobe.
It’s so much better for your wallet and the planet to swap clothes rather than buying new ones every season!

How to set up a Swish

A Swish can be as big or as small as you want, and you can do it from the comfort of your home!

Invite friends over, let them know what to bring and get going! If you wanted to go a bit larger, you could use a bigger venue, like a community hall, and invite the community through social media such as community Facebook pages, Instagram stories. Another good way to get people involved is through “snowballing” – ask you friends to invite their friends, and their friends can invite their friends!

The way to make it into a Fundraising event is to ask for an entry fee. For example £5 but the choice is yours!  Remember they are only paying the entry fee and they will be walking away with some fantastic new clothes!

You can also have a collection tin to encourage people to donate their loose change too.

What Should I Ask People to Bring?

Decide how many items to ask people to bring. We would recommend bringing 5 items each so that you have a good amount of clothes to swish/swap, but you can lower it to 3 for example if you want to. Asking everyone to bring the same number of items just means everyone can definitely swap all their clothes! If some people don;t have enough, they could mix it up and also bring shoes, a handbag and some jewellery etc instead of an item of clothing to make it up to 3 or 5!

Ask people to make sure their items are good quality.

Ask your guests to bring their items on a hanger, this will make it easier for you to put the items up and for your guests to browse!

If they have a good pair of shoes that they don’t wear, they can bring those! If not, then encourage them to come anyway and swap what they can, if they have a lower number than you've asked for that’s great too! If they don’t have anything they can swap, ask them to come along anyway, it’ll be a fun event with food, drinks, and games.

Do some extra fundraising?

On the day itself, there are lots of things you can do to bring in some extra cash…

• Refreshments! Trying on clothes is hard work, so we recommend providing refreshments for your guests. Why not have a glass of bubbly on the door, then charge by the glass for the rest of the night?
  Food is definitely also a bonus! Try not to include anything too messy, after all, people will be trying on clothes. Why not approach local caterers to see if they could offer you a good deal for your fundraising efforts. Bigger brands also do fundraising deals, Lola’s Cupcakes and Krispy Kreme have fundraising offers. You could include a bake sale and sell cupcakes and scrummy biscuits to boost your fundraising!

• Raffles – Everyone loves a chance to win a prize! You could approach local businesses to see if they could offer gift-cards or donate a prize. Runner’s up prizes could be things most people enjoy, like some choccies or a bottle of something fizzy.

• Pennies (or pounds) to sell off the remainder of the clothes/accessories. If people bring more items of clothing, fantastic! However, there might be a few things leftover, if that’s the case, why not sell off the remainder of the clothes? Attendees will still get a great deal, and you won’t have to carry so much to the charity shop. Win Win!

Top Tips!

1. Set an arrival time before the Swish, this will give people a chance to arrive, get settled, grab a drink and some Ataxia UK literature! It will also give you a chance to deal with any last minute tasks. You could ask for a 7pm arrive for an 8pm start
2. Get some help! Having your bestie around to help set up, take entry fees and sell glasses of bubble will really help.
3. Having a mirror out! This will be really useful for your guests to check that they like the item they’re swapping and that it fits okay
4. Have somewhere for people to try on their items – you could pop a curtain up in a hall, or, if it’s a smaller Swish, you could have a room in your home.
5. Think about how you want to set up – for example you could have clothing hung up, knitwear folded and accessories on a table
6. Don’t forget to take photos!

Can you walk me through the event?

Sure!

1. Make sure you have an appropriate venue (this can be your home!)
2. Decide on your entry fee and number of pieces to bring.
3. Get your invites out early! We can’t stress this enough – make sure people have enough time to hold the date free. Try and invite more people than you’ll need because it’s likely that some people won’t be able to make it on the day. However! You could keep it exclusive, you can send out reminders like “I have X amount of places left, so let me know ASAP!" to encourage RSVPs! On the invites, give people as much information as possible!
4. Put it on social media! If you’re planning a bigger event, you could post to community groups. If it’s smaller, you could make a closed Facebook group and invite your friends.
5. Let Ataxia UK know that you’re planning a fundraising event, we can send you some goodies and offer support
6. If it makes it easier, let people know they can drop off their items before the event (then they won’t have to carry so much on the day of the event).
7. On the day of the event, get everything set up. Collect the any donations from local shops or supermarkets and put up the clothes on a clothes hanger or curtain rail.
8. When people start arriving, you could allow 30mins of browsing time – but nothing can be reserved before the Swish starts !
9. Let the Swish begin!

Find out more, or Register your event by Contacting Rebecca at rholt@ataxia.org.uk