Entrepreneur on mission to tackle child poverty and clothing waste
A social enterprise in Glasgow is helping struggling families with clothing that doesn’t cost the earth.
With the dual mission of tackling child poverty and addressing the vast amount of clothing ending up in landfill, the enterprise was the brain-child of Izzie Eriksen.
Izzie, who in a previous life worked in environmental policy, believes that nothing should go to waste, particularly when it can still provide value. The initial drive behind her setting up shop was to re-use unwanted clothing and footwear to reduce the massive environmental and social impacts of clothing going to landfill. Her mission has been fuelled by some stark data - the UK throws away an estimated 350,000 tonnes of clothing to landfill each year and there is already enough clothing on the planet to clothe the entire population 8 times.
She opened her first shop back in 2019, in St Enoch centre, but positioning of the unit meant low footfall as well as repeat closures in response to Covid restrictions. Izzie wanted to relocate to a more community facing area, near schools, where they could embed as a community asset and become more financially sustainable.
Opening Strathbungo-based shop ApparelXchange in 2022 gave the initiative new premises and a better community base.
While delivering on her mission to reduce ‘disposable fashion’, Izzie and the ApparelXchange team were also acutely aware that many parents locally were struggling to afford basic clothing for their children, with many families living in poverty, which had only become worse during the pandemic.
“During COVID we really began to understand the scale of deprivation. So many people were living close to or on the breadline, and with some losing their jobs, they needed all the help they could get. This is when our social mission with the provision of clothing packages really started to grow. That and working with Glasgow City Parents Group, to reach families who needed support.”
Now, at ApparelXchange, families can shop pre-loved fashion at vastly reduce costs and can receive vital clothing packages when times are challenging. The income they make through sales, along with funding from Glasgow City Council, JMA Trust and Lottery, helps support families in need by providing no cost clothing packages. During 2024, ApparelXchange provided 1063 clothing packages containing 10,246 garments or pairs of footwear worth £47,084. Last Christmas, Izzie launched a school uniform top up scheme, a free service where parents who simply could not afford new uniforms could receive quality items at no cost. They received requests from over 120 families in less than 24 hours.
Izzie’s long term aspiration is to scale to city-wide. She is creating a sustainable clothing system for young people from primary age through to trendy teens, integrated in every community in Glasgow, that also benefits those who are struggling financially.
“I can see the impact we’ve made from our shop and warehouse space - think what we could do with long-term investment to grow, to form partnerships with others, keeping valuable resources in Glasgow, helping more families and children by removing the worry about how they are going to get dressed in the morning, and addressing the huge waste we are seeing with ‘disposable fashion’.”
Izzie’s business model is made up of 3 integral parts – physical shop sales, online sales and social mission. Foundation Scotland’s social investment fund was instrumental in the ApparelXchange Southside shop becoming a reality, with £25,000 funding awarded in 2022. This was a blend of grant and loan funding, and the loan repayments are spread over a term suited to the cashflow generated by the shop.
Izzie also runs outreach programmes in schools, sharing education opportunities, encouraging donations and helping young people grow greener. The Shawlands shop facilitates community engagement work, including hosting upcycling workshops for families, where they can bring along items of clothing for repair and learn skills themselves.
Izzie is now calling on Ministers and civil servants at a Scottish and UK level to consider the effective policy interventions that are needed for social enterprises, charities and local authorities who are at the front line of tackling poverty to make a difference and with some urgency.
“For many years, social enterprises have been managing resources, reusing and making a difference, while brands and retailers are continuing to flood our communities with cheap low cost and often unethical fashion, unregulated and unchecked. Market conditions need to change for consumption to slow down and for organisations like ApparelXchange to be able to thrive. The climate emergency is happening, child poverty is growing and money from hard working communities is flowing one way into the pockets of corporate stakeholders. It is time for Government to take a stand. We want the Glasgow pound to remain in Glasgow making a difference to lives here, not buying yachts for shareholders in the Bahamas. We have solutions here and ApparelXchange is one of them. If you want to help get involved, please donate your clothing (we take all sizes and styles) and please be a customer, whether you have children or not, buying local is the most powerful way to make a difference with your money.”
Ali Kennedy, Social Investment Executive with Foundation Scotland said:
We are proud to have ApparelXChange in our social investment portfolio, and value the vital role it plays in providing affordable, pre-loved children’s clothing in an inspiring retail environment whilst reducing the carbon footprint of the fashion industry. ApparelXChange is more than a business; it’s a community asset that empowers families in Glasgow’s southside to make real changes to their shopping habits to tackle the global challenge of textile waste. Together, we’re making sustainability accessible for all and paving the way for a greener future and we are excited to see where they take the concept next.
Read more about ApparelXchange here