Oxfam Earlsfield will stage Revival, its third annual fashion show, at The Wandle Public House on Tuesday 8 September from 6pm. Last year’s show sold out, with more than 400 people through the door.
This year it moves to a new Earlsfield venue and drops professional models altogether. All 19 people on the catwalk are local: regular customers, a barista from up the road, a tattoo artist and bar staff from a nearby pub. It is the first Oxfam Earlsfield show cast entirely from the community that supplies the shop.
This year’s show was organised by 25-year-old Deputy Manager Jamie Jupp, who built it around alternative fashion: goth, punk and emo, styles rarely given rail space in charity retail, let alone a runway. Every one of the 76 looks began as a donation and has been remade since, dyed, cut down, panelled or merged with other garments to become something new.
Jamie found her own community within alternative subcultures, and Revival is her way of putting that community on a stage alongside everyone else who makes up the shop.
Jamie said: “I joined Oxfam Earlsfield as a volunteer because I wanted somewhere to be. What I found was a home, and nobody asked me to tone anything down. The alternative scene is where I worked out who I am, and clothes are how you tell people that before you open your mouth. Oxfam Earlsfield has let me not just be myself but celebrate it. For this show I’ve worked with people from all walks of life to build something for everyone, a catwalk celebrating the whole community around the shop. Earlsfield gave me this community and this is me handing some of it back.”
A shop built around who walks in
Oxfam Earlsfield has been run for 4 years by Shop Manager Robin Brereton, who lives in the area and knows most of the faces on the high street. Under him the shop has become a fixture for younger customers in particular, many of whom come in to browse, sit, talk and volunteer rather than only to buy.
That approach shows up in the volunteer rota. The shop has one of the largest and most consistent volunteer teams, with 40 active volunteers ranging in age from 15 to 70 years.
Robin Brereton, Shop Manager at Oxfam Earlsfield, said: “Our job is to raise money for Oxfam’s projects, and we do that best by being a shop people actually want to spend time in. I live here. A lot of the people who come through the door are young, and what they need first is somewhere that does not want anything from them. If they leave with clothes that let them look like themselves, we have done two useful things at once. Jamie has taken that and put it on a stage.”
Made by the people wearing it
The garments have been reworked by volunteers, customers and two students from JCA | London Fashion Academy, the fashion school founded by Professor Jimmy Choo OBE. Luka Pinches has worked on clothing and Dominica Bartlett on footwear, both alongside Jamie in the shop’s back room.
Models include Ryan Robinson, a professional sailor and data analyst who moved to South West London and now walks the show for the third year running.
“I moved here not knowing anyone, and my week pulls in about four directions,” he said. “I need clothes for a boat, clothes for a desk and clothes for a Friday night, and I would rather not buy three wardrobes to manage it. Oxfam Earlsfield is where I found all of it. This is my third time modelling, which is not a sentence I ever expected to say about myself. I walked in for a jacket, a £15 Burberry find, and ended up with a community.”
Chanté du Preez, a paediatric occupational therapist, will also model. She shops the shop twice over, for her own wardrobe and for her the children she works with.
“I come in for the fashion, and I’ve found some very good Longchamp bags and a Barbour x Liberty jacket I wear constantly,” she said. “I also come in for work. I’m a paediatric occupational therapist, and this is where I find puzzles, toys and sensory equipment for the children I see, at prices that mean I can properly stock kit for both clinic and home visits. What Robin has built is a room where nobody gets assessed on the way in. In my job I see exactly how much that matters, and you can watch it change how people carry themselves. This part of Earlsfield is better for it.”
Local money, local impact
This year Oxfam Earlsfield raised more than £100,000 through sales and donations. The money supports Oxfam’s humanitarian and development work overseas, while the shop itself functions as a free, indoor, unpoliced space on the high street.
The show forms part of Oxfam’s Second Hand September, the charity’s national campaign encouraging people to buy second hand for the month and to donate what they no longer wear.
Event details
Oxfam Earlsfield presents: Revival The Wandle Public House, Earlsfield, SW18 4EJ Tuesday 8 September, 6pm onwards Entry is free. No ticket required.
