Good morning. I could mark the phases of my life through my charity shop purchases: the tweedy jackets of my student days, the nearly new hiking boots (a tenner!) I bought out of necessity when I first arrived back in Scotland, the battered guitar now re-strung for my son to practise Nirvana’s About a Girl.
Since they became a fixture of high streets after the second world war, charity shops have rolled with the punches of wider retail trends. In the 80s, they were showered with tax breaks to take up vacant space as supermarkets put grocers and butchers out of business. At the end of the noughties, after the global financial crash, retail legend Mary Portas promoted charity shops as a vehicle for reviving the high street. And as awareness grows of the planetary penalty of throwaway textiles, next month heralds Second Hand September, Oxfam’s annual campaign to highlight fashion’s environmental damage.
