Live Here Love Here – a civic-pride partnership from environmental charity Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful – has introduced its Fashion Forever campaign for the second year in a row to continue to challenge textile waste.
This year’s campaign is supported by Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA,) leading shopping destination, Forestside Shopping Centre, second-hand clothing supplier, Haru, and charity, Action Cancer. All have come together to help encourage fashion lovers to Stop putting clothing in the bin, Drop off unwanted clothes at second hand clothes outlets and Shop for preloved clothes.
Fashion Forever campaign
A pop-up by Haru will be in situ at Forestside Shopping Centre from 9am to 6pm on 09 April, allowing fashion lovers to get their hands on some unique preloved looks and experience a new way of shopping. Action Cancer will be showcasing their preloved collection from its stores across Northern Ireland too.
The store will feature clothing donated by charity Action Cancer, along with donations made to Fashion Forever’s clothing bank, which was situated at Forestside Shopping Centre from 14-27 March. Proceeds from sales made by the Haru pop-up will directly support Action Cancer.
Jacques Hill, Co-Founder of Haru Ltd, commented: “We are proud to support the Fashion Forever campaign and excited to uncover the donations people make for our pop-up shop. “Adopting a circular approach to our wardrobes is really important to the future of the environment and shopping preloved is a key part of that. It allows us all to lower our impact when it comes to clothing pollution but also helps fashion lovers to find unique, great quality clothing items.”
Recent research from Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful has revealed that just four per cent of local people recognise the production and consumption of clothing and textiles as harmful to our environment. The research also found that only 17% of shoppers normally buy second-hand clothing on a regular basis but over 60% said they would like to explore buying more preloved clothing rather than brand new. *
Most concerningly, around 30 per cent of the unwanted clothing and other textiles that are binned each year, approximately 8,300 tonnes, end up in local landfills**. Landfills are hazardous to the environment, contaminating water supplies, emitting greenhouse gases, and posing a threat to the health of those who live and work nearby.
Siobhan Purnell, Tackling Textiles Co-ordinator at Live Here Love Here said: “We are delighted to launch Fashion Forever for the second year running, in partnership with DAERA, Haru, Forestside Shopping Centre and Action Cancer. It is wonderful to have all these partners involved who can each bring an exciting offering to help us encourage people to never put their unwanted clothing in the bin. The campaign has been incredibly successful so far, and we’re excited to welcome fashion lovers to shop at our HARU pop up on April 9th.”
To find out more about Live Here Love Here’s Fashion Forever campaign visit @fashionforeverni on Instagram or keepnorthernirelandbeautiful.org
