Slow fashion to take over Town Hall

A NEW initiative aiming to give people a place to buy and sell preloved clothing will return to Bendigo Town Hall next month.

Second Chance Bendigo organiser and founder Nimzy Jamang said she came up with the concept after she noticed her wardrobe was filled with items she didn’t need.

“I do content creation and I get gifted lots of free clothes and at the same time I love shopping, I love buying a bargain, and I think during COVID everyone was doing a lot of online shopping,” she said.

In search of a place to sell her clothes, Ms Jamang tried Facebook marketplace and toyed with the idea of having a garage sale, but said she found those options impractical or uncomfortable.

“I thought it might be nice to have a collective, like a group of people, have it in a safe space, everyone come together and we just share it on Facebook,” she said.

“It’s like a group garage sale basically, everyone sells together, and people come to that event thinking that yes, they’re going to buy clothes.”

Now coming up to its third instalment, Ms Jamang said she runs each event like a non-profit and splits the cost of venue hire and fees equally among the stallholders.

With the cost of hiring the Town Hall and added fees for insurance climbing up to around $2500, Ms Jamang said there would be space for 25 stalls at a cost of $100 each.

“Because the space is so large, I have encouraged everyone to join, say one stall booked by two people because $100 just to hire a spot is quite expensive,” she said.

“That’s good in a way as well because then mum and daughter can do it together, friends can do it together.”

Besides clearing out her wardrobe, Ms Jamang said the event was about changing negative attitudes around buying second hand clothes as well as putting money back into the community.

“It just creates a positive cycle I suppose,” she said. “It’s basically encouraging people to be more sustainable with clothes.”

Shoppers can enter for free and anyone interested in having a stall can contact Nimzy via the Second Chance Bendigo Facebook or Instagram page.

Second Chance Bendigo will be on the 24 February from 10 to 4pm at Town Hall.