With so many possible ways to source secondhand, vintage and pre-loved clothing, where do we get our clothes from and how do we ensure great quality?
Well, we use some of the UK's biggest and best vintage-specific wholesalers, who themselves process huge quantities of clothing from all over Europe. To ensure the best possible quality, we hand-pick every piece of clothing ourselves from their warehouses and only use 'Grade-A' pieces. 'Grade-A' means 'As New' or 'Nearly New'. This way, we can make sure that the clothes that you receive are top-notch while remaining true to our vintage roots.
Once a month we set off eye-wateringly early from London and head up to the handpick warehouse. It’s all worth it though, to make sure we get in there first and bag the real vintage gold. We spend the day rummaging through thousands of pieces of vintage and pick out only the best for your boxes. This is probably our favourite part of the job - selecting each individual piece and thinking about which of our lovely customers it would suit. Once we’re loaded up with top quality clobber, we head back to C&S HQ. Our latest additions are then washed, ironed and winging their way out to you in no time.
Our vintage stock ranges from 1950s to 1990s and is what we describe as 'everyday vintage'. We’re not expecting our customers to dress head to toe in Lindy Hopper gear, but in classic pieces that have been selected by us for their versatility. Not everything we send out in our boxes is branded. In fact, some of our best pieces have no labels in them at all! However, some of the brands whose pre-loved clothing we do use are Adidas, Dickies, Fred Perry, Dockers, Wrangler, Reebok and North Face.
We believe that by using clothes already in existence we are saving them from landfill or incineration and reducing the number of new pieces of fast fashion purchased.
Over the coming weeks, our blog series will feature an article on how we track and monitor our sustainability credentials. To us, 'sustainable' is not just a marketing buzzword, we truly consider our environmental impact in every decision we make.