Wednesday 2nd October 2024
Wendy Brawer is the creator of the Green Map system, now a global movement of open source sustainability maps. Wendy created the original map of New York's environment, the Green Apple Map in 1992. She very kindly tok the time to show me round her neighbourhood in the East Village, chatted about reuse projects and the huge amount of community activism in the city.
I couldn't keep up with the list of organisations and groups of people she spoke of repurposing, swapping, reusing or suppling textiles for free. She had also sent me a list in advance of swap events and initiatives all over the city.
The realisation of just HOW much clothing was out there hit hard, as did the overwhelming sense of communities fiercely supporting each other and constantly developing grassroots solutions to local problems.
We met at Jane's Exchange - the longest running baby and children’s reuse store in NYC. A mini Merry-go-round! It was started by a woman called Eva 31 years ago, and now run by her daughter Jane. Jane was the only memer of staff until very recently (now they have 2!) and ran the entire operation herself.
Three weird facts.....
🤯 Jane is 7 months pregnant and is calling her baby….Elliot (my son's name!)
🤯 Her shop has a big pillar in the middle in brand colours like our shop!
🤯 My middle name is Jane!
Ok, they get less weird as they go down, but we both thought it was a lot of fun crazy coincidence.
It’s a consignment store, although they do accept donations too. Consignment is really big in the USA - here, people bring stuff in (20 items max by appointment) and then receive 30% of the sales price as store credit when it sells. Consignment by appointment lets them control volumes and stock and only take items they know will sell. The downside to consignment is the reduction on income but with donation levels through the roof at Merry-go-round at the moment, this stock control system does have its appeal! The difference with us of course is that we have a mission to rehome as many used items as possible, rather than a business model focussing on just meeting demand. Jane tells me that it works and they were one of the few to survive covid as they only give store credit rather than cash like other consigment sores, but the margins are very very small.
They have a cute book play area at the front, I also loved their shoe try-on area. Both of those things took up space in a tiny shop but really brought people in and created that sense of a supportive space. Reuse serving more than a waste purpose again.
My three takeaways for Merry-go-round were the shoe try on area, the 15% off store prices they offer for posting purchases on social media, and the clearly marked age ranges on everything around the store.
Barcode ticket system, necessary for consignment, to identify the seller and track sales and prices.
Some more pictures on my flickr page here
Interesting about the consignment model. Peebles is only small but we now have 2 clothes shops where you take your items in to be sold for on commission. There was one nearby in Innerleithen years ago but it closed down, so it will be interesting to see if these 2 survive long term.