Barnardo’s Sustainable Fashion Event at Ikea Belfast

This weekend I had the pleasure of heading down to a wonderful sustainable fashion event down at Ikea in Holywood.

Organised by the fabulous Cathy Martin & in aid of Barnardo’s Charity Shop, Saturday afternoon had fashion shows in store, with the stunning models showing off some of the lovely pre-loved pieces that would be available for purchase the next day!

I love a good fashion show and when Cathy compere’s you get to hear all of the details about each piece (which my untrained eye really appreciates) and where it was originally bought from.

This was a really great way to get a sneak preview of some of the clothes that would be available and I was hyped for the next day, which was like a pop-up Barnardo’s right in-store at Ikea, running alongside their own sustainability campaign & policies.

Ikea Belfast are making brilliant strides in sustainability, this includes their ‘buy-back’ scheme where you can return your pre-loved Ikea furniture to be priced and can have it bought back by the company, as well as their textiles bin where you drop off your used clothes, sheets, pillowcases etc. to be recycled! The company’s goal is to be only using renewable and recycled materials by 2030, their environmental ethos made Ikea Belfast the perfect venue for the sustainable fashion Barnardo’s Pop Up!

The beauty of a pre-loved sale is in the rummage, I love that there’s only ever 1 version in 1 size of each piece, and the reward of the dig when you find something gorgeous in the rack that’s in your size is brilliant!

Luckily for me, gorgeous Miss Great Britain Eden McAllister & her lovely mummy were down with a rail of gorgeous ‘Going Out’ clothes, all sized 6-8! Having coincidentally bought from Eden’s DePop before (my white dress from the Miss Northern Ireland Talent Night) and having some Christmas Parties/events coming up soon, I of course went home with 2 of her party dresses (1 still had the tags on!) 

I also picked up a gorgeous cream faux fur coat from one of the other sellers, also still with the tags on!

The current light-speed trend cycle and fast-fashion has terrible impact on the environment, so to off-set my carbon footprint I’ve been making a real effort to buy good quality, classic staples (that won’t be out of style next week) and to buy pre-loved as often as I can, be it from a charity shop rummage or on DePop!

There’s also a serious financial benefit too, as I left the Ikea Barnardo’s pop-up event with 2 event outfits plus a lovely new coat for less than £50 total, talk about a steal!

Stacey Xx