Marks & Spencer (M&S) joins forces with Joanna Lumley to launch Shwopping—a new initiative that will revolutionise clothes shopping and help consumers to live more sustainable lifestyles.

M&S believes unwanted clothes should have a future: they should be put to good use, not just thrown out. It is therefore asking its customers to shwop – give an unwanted piece of clothing every time they buy a new one. All M&S clothing stores will now accept unwanted clothing of any brand, all year round. It’s a new, free service for customers aimed at creating a new ‘buy one, give one’ culture on the UK high street.

Photo: A visual for the new Shwopping campaign, www.marksandspencer.com/Shwop

Through Oxfam, the clothes will be resold, reused or recycled and the money raised will go to help people living in poverty. Not a single item will go to landfill and the ultimate aim for M&S is to recycle as many clothes as it sells—350 million a year. April 26 also marked the unveiling of Joanna Lumley as the new worldwide ambassador of Plan A—the eco and ethical programme which aims to make M&S the world’s most sustainable major retailer.

Joanna will front the Shwopping campaign and she joined M&S CEO Marc Bolland and Oxfam CEO Barbara Stocking on Aril 26 at a street covered in unwanted clothes in East London created to highlight the problem of clothes going to landfill. Almost 10,000 (the number of clothes used to cover the street) items of clothing go to landfill every five minutes. One billion items of clothing a year are sent to landfill, one in four items sold.

M&S has also launched a TV, print and online marketing campaign to support Shwopping. This includes a specially created facebook app—www.facebook.com/marksandspencer—which will allow customers to socialise shwopping. Shwoppers will be able to share experiences, see how many clothes are being shwopped at their local store and advise other shwoppers on which items in their wardrobes to shwop or not.

The launch coincided with the opening of the ‘Shwop Lab’ in collaboration with London College of Fashion’s Centre For Sustainable Fashion. The pop-up space, open until May 9 at the Old Truman Brewery, will explore the future of fashion through a series of collaborations with the UK’s leading lights in sustainable fashion and design.