Swap till you drop

In better days, diamonds may have been a girl's best friend. But in such dark economic times, it's friends who are a girl's best friend — especially if you can raid their closets.

Clothing swaps are growing in popularity — and for good reason. The events, at which people donate clothes they no longer wear and walk away with items they never even knew they wanted, provide a shopping high without the buyer's remorse, a wardrobe refresher without the plastic.

Pocket-friendly cure

In an era when people with money aren't spending it and people who don't have much are hoarding it, clothing swaps are a cost-free cure for clothing lust, which, despite the declining economy, is a difficult habit to give up, even if most of us have more than enough to wear.

The typical woman uses 20 per cent of her clothes 80 per cent of the time, according to Suzanne Agasi, a clothing swapper who advocates giving up some of the stuff we rarely wear.

Agasi lives in San Francisco and is a seasoned swapper. She has a website devoted to the idea (www.clothingswap.org). She has even trademarked the term “clothing swap'', which seems appropriate since Agasi has run about 170 swaps in the past 14 years.

The first 12 years, “everyone thought I was nuts'', she said. But with the economy disintegrating and “green'' becoming the new black, swaps have gone mainstream.

I had never been to a swap but the concept seemed to be swirling all around — in the media and among friends, one of whom had chosen to spend her 40th birthday hosting one.

So I thought I would throw one of my own.

There were just a few things that confused me.

If I contributed five items, did I get to take five items? What about discrepancies in body size and clothing calibre? If I'm a size 8, should I invite other 8s only? If I give up a pair of well-maintained Charles David shoes and someone else brings a pair of beat-up sneakers, does that matter? What do I do with the leftovers?

A bit of confusion

I reached out to Agasi for answers. Don't do a one-for-one-exchange, she said; let women bring and take as much as they like. Invite women of all different sizes.

Encourage them to bring accessories and clothes. Let the room dictate what has value — and don't be afraid to part with the good stuff.

“The money has been spent,'' Agasi said. “If you're not wearing it, it's not worth anything.''

So go ahead, let someone else have it.

Surveying my closet for potential giveaways, I found the usual suspects in half-assembled outfits and ill-fitting, forever-shelved rarely-worns.

There was the brand-new sweater waiting for the perfect pair of skinny pants, the sexy stilettos that weren't so sexy when my heels kept slipping out. In all, I found 12 items I was willing to part with — enough to form the beginnings of a swap and send an Evite.

Agasi warned me that the most time-consuming aspect of hosting a clothing swap would be explaining it to people, which was mostly true. My biggest issue was allaying fears.

Though my invitation drew immediate and enthusiastic RSVPs, it also drew comments and questions:

“I have monstrously large feet!''; “I don't have anything decent to give away!''; “Are you sure there will be other women my size?''

Out of the closet

Yes, was my answer to the last question. As a matter of fact, I know several.

Twelve women showed up for the swap and that was more than enough. At 3pm, when the party was scheduled to begin, my living-room floor was strewn with a scant assortment of my own random closet rejects, all arranged next to handmade signs that stated the obvious.

There were a couple of pairs of heels, a smattering of sweaters, a necklace, scarves, a hat — about $500 (Dh1,837) worth of cast-offs I had bought but rarely worn.

An hour later, those signs were straining under the heaps of textile refuse my friends had hauled in via box, bag and satchel. And my friends were champing at the bit to dive in.

I walked everyone through some of Agasi's basic guidelines: If you intend to walk home in the shoes you wore to the swap, take them off and put them in the kitchen — a neutral, hands-off zone.

Likewise for anything else you wore to the swap. If you want to keep it once you've taken it off to try on something else, put it in a bag with your name on it.

With that, I let my guests start pawing through the stacks. Being the hostess, I didn't really have time to notice the precise items my friends had unloaded.

Gone in a trice

But a few friends I had never before recognised as fashionistas had, apparently, been eyeing what my fellow cats had dragged in and immediately pounced on the more premium items.

My friend Dash lived up to her name and headed for the pair of red “pirate pants'' that had been unloaded just moments earlier. Ann picked up one of my old sweaters.

In no time, there were the excitedly exchanged compliments.

The mood was light in the “dressing room'' — i.e., my bedroom, the only room in my house with a full-length mirror.

Clothes were flying as if we were in an unmanned Anthropologie dressing room at a going-out-of-business sale. We were high on free clothes.

The swap lasted about three hours, just as Agasi predicted. It was 6pm when everyone skipped out the door with their bags of new (to them) clothes, many wearing different outfits than the ones they had arrived in.

I scored a jacket and a couple of skirts. I adopted some more items when I picked up the many leftovers and packed them into bags for Goodwill.

“Be good. Be green. Be glam.'' That's Agasi's motto and for one glorious Saturday afternoon, I made it my own.

Tips for getting started

Thinking of hosting a clothing swap but don't know where to begin? Here are some do's and don'ts from Suzanne Agasi, founder and director of ClothingSwap.org. She has hosted about 170 swaps.

Do:

Don't: