“Secondhand Is Feckin’ Grand”: How Clothing Swaps Took Off in Ireland

Mary Fleming was on holiday in Kenya when she saw it: a mound of secondhand clothes heaped by a river, the pile so vast and unruly it was spilling into the water.

The sight shocked her. At home in Ireland she was a passionate shopper and bought a new outfit almost every weekend. Now, in East Africa, she was seeing the consequence of fast fashion and mass consumption.

A decade later Fleming, now 34, is leading a campaign to prevent waste by swapping, reusing, repairing and repurposing clothes under the inimitable exhortation: “Because secondhand is feckin’ grand.”