Second Hand September is a much-needed celebration of pre-loved (and more sustainable) style. Sara Brown investigates why it’s not open to all…
A sIrun my hand over the cold hangers of the charity-shop rail, a glimmer of a rainbow catches my eye. It’s a truly epic multicoloured check blazer, and what do I spy next to it? A beautiful Burberry trench coat. I’m thrilled to find such holy-grail items buried here… but they aren’t for me. I keep going. My hand makes its way past these size 8s, the 10s, 12s and 14s, until I get to my section – squished at the back – labelled ‘24+’.
To say that we get the dregs feels a lot like an understatement. If I’m lucky enough to find anything in the plus-size section, it’s usually a ‘grandmother of the bride’-style dress, or a dinner-lady tabard, much like the ones I used to wear at Rainbows as a five-year-old. As a size 24, it’s hard, and often feels impossible, to shop sustainably.
I’ve been plus-size all my adult life; I’ve also been captivated by the fashion industry ever since I can remember. I studied fashion design at university, and by the time I was making my graduate collection, supposedly ‘bigger’ (than sample size) sizes on the catwalk were still rare. I had endless debates with my tutors about the fact that I wanted to design clothing that fit me, and I was the only person in my year to create clothing for a body bigger than a size 8. Since then, I’ve designed and consulted for big names such as Asos and Rixo, and I’ve even started my own sizeinclusive brand, Dolly Rocket. But somehow, it still feels like the industry has a long way to go.
We’ve been living through an age of waste, and we know it’s got to change. We’re ditching single-use plastics and recycling is now second nature. But what can we do when it comes to our wardrobes? For many, shopping second-hand, swapping clothes or buying from sustainable fashion brands can be a simple step forwards. But if you’re trying to do this while also being over a size 16, it’s much harder. In 2020, Fashion United forecasted that by 2022, plus sizes would account for 22% of the clothing market in the UK. On top of this, in the past five years, we’ve seen a 450% increase in Google searches for sustainable-clothing brands in the UK. These stats point towards great demand, so why do the options still seem so… rare?
As writer and fashion consultant Aja Barber points out, ‘Fatphobia still plagues us.’ I know first-hand that behind the scenes in the business, there are still plenty of non-plus-size people arguing that they know best about what plus-size women want. Outdated views remain, and brands fear change. In an industry that knows it has a waste problem, Barber tells me that we’re seeing brands incinerate unsold clothing rather than re-evaluating what sizes the mar
