Last week, I went along to really check out what all this ‘swishing’ business is really about. Having received an email from My Big Wardrobe.com who organise The Big Swish, a roadshow of events where girls not only swap clothes but can also benefit from free beauty treatments (courtesy of Dermalogica) free makeovers and massages, I had extremely high expectations of my £6.50 ticket.
On queuing for some time in order to register for the event, then queuing again to drop off my clothes followed by another queue as we waited to be allowed into the event, it quickly became apparent that this event wasn’t all it had been made out to be. The function room in the basement of The Long Acre played host to a number of rails of clothes, crammed together so that it was difficult if not impossible to see the items of clothes as on the compere’s announcement, ready steady swish, a swarm of girls descended on the rails in a manner not dissimilar to the footage you sometimes see on the news of starving people clamouring for food parcels in disaster zones.
Without even looking at the clothes, many grabbed armfuls of stuff from the rails which has already been stripped of anything truly decent by the VIP ticket holders who had been allowed to enter in advance of the pauper ticket holders. I was lucky to spot an All Saints shirt dress which had been passed over, probably because the colour was more appropriate to Winter, a puffy pink skirt, and a couple of basic tops. I went away with half the amount of stuff I took with me which actually didn’t bother me so much as the fact that I got nowhere near any of the gorgeous tops I’d seen hanging on a rail.
To be honest, it was an exhausting experience, battling to get to see clothes before they are snapped up by greedy girls in a cramped room. Not fun. But from talking to a couple of girls in the queue, it sounded as there are people who are taking this seriously.
“That was my top,” said the girl behind me in her Essex accent.
“Oh, really. Cool. I’m a bit disappointed actually as I didn’t get as much nice stuff as I hoped but I guess that’s the risk you take. I brought 15 items and took away 7.”
“What? No. You need to take all your items. That way you can take the stuff you don’t want to another clothes swap and get things you do like. In fact, I’m buying a £20 ticket next time so I can make sure.”
So it seemed that you could have people coming along, bringing rubbish clothes but spending £20 on a ticket and snapping up some of the best items before the others get a look in! Clothes swap? I think not.
No comments:
Post a Comment