Queues out the door, thronged tills, DJs. There was all the pazzazz of a flagship store opening but the excitement was not for one of fashion’s big names. It was for the opening of Charity Super.Mkt, labelled the first multi-charity preloved fashion department store.
Surely it is a sign of the times when a charity shop opening in one of the UK’s best-known shopping centres draws crowds and makes a splash.
Ironically, Charity Super.Mkt made its debut last week in the former premises of fallen fashion star Topshop in London’s Brent Cross, where it is trading as a pop-up shop for four weeks.
The venture is the initiative of entrepreneur Wayne Hemingway and Maria Chenoweth, chief executive of sustainable clothing charity Traid.
Hemingway made his name as a founder of fashion label Red or Dead, which was ultimately sold to Pentland Brands in the 1990s.
Despite some obvious differences, Charity Super.Mkt is representative of Hemingway’s longstanding interests. Red or Dead launched as a stall in Camden Market selling second-hand clothes and in 1999, he opened a shop made entirely from recycled materials.
And his Hemingway Design business, founded in 2000, has frequently been involved in regeneration and community projects. Charity Super.Mkt fits into that ethos. It clicks too with what is going on in society, from the impact at present of the cost-of-living crunch through to concerns with the climate crisis, disposable fashion and the circular economy – reflected among some traditional retailers experimenting with second-hand ranges.
A big shift
Ten charities are represented in the store, including Age UK, Cancer Research, Shelter and Traid. The venture taps into rising interest in second-hand clothing, including offers from some established retailers.
While Charity Super.Mkt’s debut “doesn’t mean the end of new products”, it is representative of “a big shift”, Hemingway tells Retail Week.
“People are ready for this now,” he maintains. “There’s the small thing of climate change, that is pretty important. Then there’s the small thing of the cost-of-living crisis. Then we‘ve got a more purposeful public.
“We’ve got Gen Z, Gen Alpha, and they quite like spending money when the money goes back into the things that they care about. This is a generation that can’t afford to buy, on the whole, relies on the bank of mum and dad, and has been shafted by previous generations and the economy.
“Number one is thrift, number two they know that when they spend their money in these shops it’s not going to some offshore tax haven, it’s going to end-of-life care, it’s going to homelessness.”
A shop for all
However, Charity Super.Mkt is not designed only to cater for the young. Brent Cross, owned by property giant Hammerson, was chosen to check that the idea worked.
Hemingway explains: “We wanted to try it in a shopping centre that you had to make a slight effort to get to. That was a really good test. If it was going to work at Brent Cross you could imagine what it was going to be like in Oxford Street or Piccadilly Circus or the centre of Leeds or Manchester.
“We wanted it to not just be where all the kids go shopping. We’ve done it where the average shopper goes – this is not just full of students and teenagers, this is everybody.”
Some traditional retailers bridle at charity shops and the breaks they get, while some local councillors see them as a blight on town centres. But they are firmly established and can help bring vitality to high streets and other retail locations.
There are approximately 3,800 second-hand shops in the UK and revenue from charity shops stands at about £746m.
Hemingway says: “For some of us that’s where we’ve shopped for a long time for all the reasons we’ve talked about. How can it not be part of the landscape?”
Future possibilities
He says that Hammerson, which provided the fitted-out premises rent-free, has been a “great” partner
The shop broke its sales target within a few days of opening and Hemingway says he has been “inundated” with enquiries from landlords and others interested in hosting a Charity Super.Mkt store.
He says: “What we have brought is worth quite a lot of money. We bring footfall and that brings turnover. We bring publicity and on top of that we’re bringing purpose.”
He says he is ready to scale Charity Super.Mkt and some “big names” are keen to sponsor it. If purposeful shopping is here to stay, the retailer could become a presence in more top shopping centres.
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