A group of charities are to take over part of Fenwick’s former Bond Street department store next month, bringing secondhand clothing to one of London’s most exclusive shopping locations.
From 9 February, the Charity Super.Mkt group, which involves five charities including Shelter, Traid, Shaw Trust and Havens Hospices, will temporarily inhabit the former handbag and accessories section. Fenwick is moving out of the site after almost 133 years.
Described as the “pre-loved” department store, the multi-charity shop will be open for a fortnight. It will also host events with DJs at weekends as it trades alongside the stores of luxury brands including Dior, Hermès and Emporio Armani
The charities will use fittings and even hangers from Fenwick as well as some items donated by the designer brands that will be finishing their packing up behind hoardings in the rest of the store.
The department store chain, which was founded in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1882 by John James Fenwick, announced in 2022 it was selling the site on New Bond Street to invest in its seven other locations, which include Newcastle, Kingston in south London and York, as well as updating its online presence.
The new owner, which bought the building for a reported £420m, is to convert it into a mixed-use development with retail on the ground floor and offices above.
Charity Super.Mkt started with a six-week residency in a former Topshop in London’s Brent Cross shopping centre and the Fenwick project will be its 15th popup. It is occupying sites in Bristol, Edinburgh, Oxford, Salford and London’s Westfield centre in west London, tapping into the trend for vintage fashion.
The initiative has so far raised almost £1.6m for charities through the sale of more than 180,000 items, diverting 53 tonnes of clothing away from landfill.
Wayne Hemingway, the former Red or Dead designer who has helped bring the project together, said: “We are on a mission to get charity fashion into spaces and places it hasn’t been before. Bond Street with all the big brands and dresses for £2,000 is going to be a major experiment. Will people come who have a very different background to most charity shoppers and who maybe have never been in a charity shop before?”
While the project’s organisers are not promising vintage designer bargains. Hemingway said the charities would be “putting stuff aside” that they thought was right for Bond Street. “There won’t be the same stock as on Scunthorpe High Street, it will be tailored as best we can,” he added.
Maria Chenoweth, the chief executive of Traid, who co-founded the project, said the venture had “lots of offers on the table” for future sites but was keen to secure a good spot on London’s Oxford Street where it could fill one of the multitude of empty stores. She said she hoped the Bond Street popup would be “a launch pad for something special”.
Chenoweth added that Charity Super.Mkt had been offered a spot as part of a project to put independents into vacant units on Oxford Street but had been told it would be up to two years before it could move in.
Its organisers hope change the perception of charity shopping as the rise of online marketplaces such as Depop and Vinted inspires young people to look beyond fast fashion.
Long term, the former Fenwick site’s new owner, Lazari Investments, which is run by the descendants of the late property tycoon Chris Lazari, have said the five-storey building will become offices and retail space.
Leo Fenwick, a member of the department store’s founding family who is director of strategic partnerships, said: “Partnering with Charity Super.Mkt combines many threads of our sustainability and charitable initiatives, including helping accelerate the move to a low-waste society with the reduction in textile waste, supporting opportunities for women to thrive, and partnering with charities to improve communities and the environment.”
Interest in more sustainable ways of dressing and the rising cost of living have fuelled a boom in trade for charities and online sellers. Sales of secondhand clothing were up almost 50% to £1.27bn in 2022, according to a report from the Co-operative Bank and Ethical Consumer magazine, while charity shop sales were up 147%.
The UK market is forecast to rise by 67.5% from 2022 to 2026, with menswear the fastest-growing sector, according to analysts at the analytics and consultancy firm GlobalData.
