https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/kids-clothes-swap-shop-1.6103074
Unlike most thrift shops, no money is exchanged, only clothing.
Milton-Parc is the neighbourhood closest to McGill University in the Plateau Mont-Royal borough; its southwest. The little mall underneath La Cité has many empty premises; I think only the large Métro supermarket and the little SAQ outlet are doing well.
Any similar initiatives elsewhere?
friends of mine used to have an annual weekend party and clothes swap. a room with a big pile of clothes, that got picked over and swapped (and burrowed through by kids) all weekend. quality of life, right there.
the nearest town to me has a lower-income second-hand clothing consignment store, run by good people, who quietly support the community. it's country, so not a wide style range, but i'm happy to patronize them. makes one miss the city though.
getting (chemical) scent out of used clothes has become the big issue for me. i've run into clothes - most notably a columbia jacket - made with scented material. it won't wash out, basically ever. oxy-clean, borax, sunlight/air seem to work best, to the extent that they do.
The last place I lived in Ottawa had a swap table in the lobby. I still have a shirt I picked up from there. But it was a really great idea and we enjoyed participating in the initiative. The neighbour who started it also made our tiny side pieces of land around the low rise apartment building into a magical garden.
Was the Colombia jacket "scented" to begin with? (Colombia is a fairly expensive brand). I hate "scented" stuff.
Rather often, people who hold so-called "garage sales" on my street wind up giving away items in good shape because they are moving or have simply accumulated too much stuff and clutter. We also leave them by the curb. I lost considerable weight when I was hospitalised and gave away at least three jeans as well as a coat and jackets that would have been more expensive to alter than they had cost (the coat was bought at an end-of-season sale).
A friend who often shops at charity shops has noticed how shabbily some of them treat their staff who are supposedly there for job training. This is far from universal (staff at Le Chaînon on boulevard St-Laurent on the Plateau seem to be treated well and stay on for several years) but others, especially some of the chains, are far from charitable.
the jacket was made with fabric impregnated with scent, so it "always smells fresh". it's a thing. i washed it four of five times, weeks on the clotheline - i couldn't figure it out. my friend called it, said columbia is know for that. threw it out, nothing to be done, toxic, get it out of circulation.
i have several friends who are very very sensitive to scent. i'm halfway there. some of that artificial scent is close to and came from nerve gas research. that cheap wintergreen scent is just nerve agent jr.
our societies are _so awash in *stuff*. i always liked the concept of the "free store" (somewhat like you describe in the opening post), which i think came out of the yippee's. i'm also a fan of the "dump store", and when i'm in the city, the "garbage night store".
and generally "using less new stuff".
That is horrible and should be banned. Is there any sort of campaign to that effect?
