You may have heard of terms such as “underconsumption core” or “upcycling,” trends that are gaining steam online as people pay more attention to spending habits and the effect our purchases have on our mental health and the environment.
Radical Clothes Swap is a Los Angeles-based Latina-run nonprofit aimed at helping people simultaneously conserve and save money by having them look no further than their own closets.
“We host free clothing swaps throughout Los Angeles,” said CEO and co-founder Nicole Macias. “We're just trying to get people to see how much textile waste is created through the fashion industry and teach people sustainable practices.”
The concept is simple: people can bring five to ten clothing items to donate and, in return, take home five to ten items.
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“In a capitalist-run world, what's one of the most radical things that we as a community and society can do? To us, that's giving away free resources and specifically giving away free clothes,” Macias said. "Our mission and goal is to provide free resources to the community, normalize radical sustainability, and kind of just change people's relationships with consumption, capitalism and shopping.”
Radical Clothes Swap began in 2021, hosting periodic clothing swaps and gaining a larger audience with each event. The nonprofit hosts an event at Angel City Brewery every second Saturday of the month.
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“This is the first one I ran into in LA, used to go to them in New York, but they're a wonderful organization,” said Stephanie Meyer, who comes to Radical’s events to donate clothes whenever she can. “I do think that upcycling clothing and having opportunities like this really does help in terms of what doesn't end up in a landfill, right?”
For co-founder Jannine Mancilla, this type of work is a lifetime in the making.
“Being a first-gen child of immigrants, we didn't have a lot of money to buy clothes, so I grew up thrifting, second-hand, hand-me-downs,” Mancilla said. “We hosted our own clothing swap at a public library that we worked at and that just sparked more of an interest in like wanting to do this.”
Mancilla and Macias operate Radical Clothing Swap along with manager Enriquetta Navarro.
Together, the trio has been honored for their work by the City of Los Angeles.
They’re also proud to be Latinas creating an inclusive space for all.
“We are all children of immigrants. We all grew up doing sustainable, sustainably, living our lives and swapping within our own circles,” Macias said. “It just kept growing with every time we would host one and so we realized that we needed to continue to do this and share our knowledge with with our community.”
