The chosen group will not only feature in the magazine, but earn themselves a group fee of £200! – you could use this for a great girly night out, a donation to a charity of your choice, or anything you like …

If interested, please contact us as soon as possible at info@swishing.co.uk and we will reply with the contact details.

Many thanks to all those who entered our recent competition, sponsored by eve, the new fruit flavoured sparkling drinks brand. Congratulations go to Liz from Stockport, our 1st prize winner, seen here enjoying a great night out with her VIP tickets at the eve Fashion Swap event in Manchester … (apparently it was a fast and furious swap, with the rails cleared in about 20 minutes!). Congratulations also go to our runners-up, Natalie from Southampton and Amber from London, both of whom received a £50 House of Fraser gift voucher!

Hannah modelling the new range

After months of hard work, we are pleased to present the new and improved swishing.co.uk website. Improvements include:

A New Look
The site has a fabulous new look, and celebrate this all the clothes have been professionally modelled by the lovely Hannah and Amy. 

New Clothes
There are a whole host of new clothes to choose from, including brand new items to used ones in great condition. 

Lower Delivery Charges
A new fairer weight based delivery system has been introduced with charges from as little as £3.95. 

A Fairer Credits System
The previous credits system has been replaced with a ‘virtual money’ one ensuring more acturate valuations of items. This also means all items are available for sale as well as swap. 

A New Approval System
A stricter approval system has been introduced to ensure the quality to clothes constantly increases rather than decreases. 

All Clothes In Stock
No more order disappointment with only in stock items listed on the site. 

To check out the new swishing experience go to www.swishing.co.uk

With Celebrities like Lindsay Lohan giving there full backing it’s attracting world wide attention. Lohan recently remarked “The concept of swapping clothes, getting something for nothing and refreshing your wardrobe appeals to everyone.” Over the last six months swishing has doubled it’s followers and helped recycle tons of garments effectively.

Swishing.co.uk is attracting lots of like minded fashionistas’ and is quickly proving that virtual swapping beats splurging out on expensive newbie’s!

I, like every woman I know, suffer from occasional severe episodes of ‘clothes guilt’. That slightly sick feeling you get when you open your wardrobe and there’s more in there than you can possibly wear. When you know you have become a materialistic girl! How did we become so fixated on buying and storing and never wearing?!

In current hard times, we have a bigger motivation than ever to swap our clothes for wardrobe newbies, instead of splurging out on items we’ll probably never wear just to get that notorious retail buzz! Let us down our plastic carrier bags and head to our wardrobe empowered by the fact that we will build a fully functional wardrobe and help to cut down on harmful textile waste.

Organising a swishing party is simple. The best way to start out is to arrange a small party in your home and invite around 10 of your closest friends. Ask them to bring a certain number of unwanted items with them, which are clean, ironed and in good condition. The more clothes each person brings, the greater selection of clothes there are to swap. Perhaps 5 items each is a reasonable starting point, providing 50 fashion items to chose from. Specify what type of clothes to bring – shoes, belts, hats, jewellery, fashion clothing. When organising a large swishing party you will need to charge an entrance fee if you have hired a hall in which to hold the event. Hand out a number of vouchers according to the number of items brought, and remember to provide changing room space. A simple washing line secured at around 6 foot height with large blankets or old curtains slung over it makes a good impromptu changing space. Sell hot drinks and cakes at a swishing party to cover your costs.

You can even organise a clothes swap event as a fund raiser for your chosen charity or to raise money for your local hospital or school. Remember to publicise the event as much as possible. Email all your friends and ask them to pass it on. Print leaflets and put them in local libraries, shop windows and through nearby house letterboxes. Advertise in local free papers. And don’t forget to list your event on SwishingParties.com!

Gwyneth Paltrow, Sienna Miller, Mischa Barton and Lindsay Lohan are among a stampede of celebrities who are already confirmed fans of the craze. The celeb following have even been seen wearing dresses on the red carpet that they got at swishing parties and have become regular customers at designer swap shops. It seems that the very fact they bagged the item in a successful swap makes the garment that bit cooler and bags big points with the local green team too.

Swishing comes to us as a way to beat the dreaded credit crunch whilst helping to recycle perfectly fine, gorgeous pieces and update our wardrobes in the process. It feels good to get something for nothing and not having the guilt of splashing that hard earned cash. But, it seems that even if you have the pay package of a Hollywood actress swishing still has something to offer.

It saves energy. The Government’s waste strategy report for 2007 says that re-use of textiles gives environmental benefits, partly due to the high resource requirements of primary material production such as energy and water use.

Textiles are now the fastest growing sector of household waste, swishing will help to tackle this head on. Sales of new clothing in the UK have increased by 60 per cent in 10 years. According to the charity Traid, which specialises in recycling textiles, about 900,000 tons of clothing and shoes are thrown away in the UK each year; around three quarters of this ends up in landfill. See traid.org.uk.