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"There's no catch": Latina activists are giving away thousands of free clothes in LA

Radical Clothes Swap is "a bad-ass group of stylish WOC who’ve made clothing swaps cool."

Credit: Radical Clothes Swap

Radical Clothes Swaps are changing the way we think about fashion.

The clothing world has changed drastically over the past 100 years, as we've witnessed the rise of fast fashion, with companies like Shein, Zara, H&M, and Fashion Nova now dominating the marketplace. As a result, it is estimated that the average American tosses 81.5 pounds of clothes away each year, contributing to the growing global textile waste crisis. However, in Los Angeles, a bad-ass team of Latina activists are putting their community activist roots to good use, combating fast fashion’s pro-waste ethos with a simple mission: free clothes for all.

Founded in 2021, Radical Clothes Swap (RCS) goes beyond thrift stores or apps like Depop, where users can sell second-hand clothing. It’s a revolutionary movement that asks us to challenge our assumptions about waste, consumption, and community care—and makes sure we look good while doing it. “In a capitalistic world, what’s the most radical thing you can do? Give resources away for free while helping the environment? Say no more,” declares Nicole Macias, co-founder and CEO of Radical Clothes Swap.


clothing swap, sign, free, donations, recyclingThe monthly events are refreshingly straightforward and have a huge impact on the community.Credit: Radical Clothes Swap

Radical Clothes Swap is a woman of color-owned, donation-based clothing swap that hosts monthly events throughout Los Angeles. It’s a refreshingly straightforward concept: people can donate up to 10 gently used items of clothing (with the exception of shoes and bags) and anyone, whether they’ve donated or not, can take home as many pieces of clothing as they want. See a shirt that your partner would look great in? Grab it, no questions asked. These clothes are for all, no exceptions.

“What we’ve created is beautiful because when it comes to Black and Brown folks, we’re not used to being given anything for free. People will often give us confused looks when we tell them the clothes are free. They expect there to be a catch, but there is no catch at all.” - Janninne Mancilla to Refinery29


Nicole Macias, a community organizer based in Northeast LA, met her RCS co-founder, Janninne Mancilla (the company’s social media and Marketing Manager) on Instagram, where the two connected over a “shared love of fashion and community” and decided to join forces. The rest of the team formed naturally, with Enri Navarro (RCS' Graphic Designer and Swap Manager) and Nikki Hernandez (Website Manager and Consultant), who were both already community advocates and friends of the co-founders.


@radicalclothesswap Our free monthly Sip & Swap is back at Angel City Brewery! Grab a miche and get your swap on 💞 every second Saturday of the month. #sustainablehotgirlsummer #radicalclothesswap #raddiebaddies #freeclothesforall #LosAngelesClothesSwap #angelcitybrewery #ilovemicheladas ♬ La Quebradora - Banda El Recodo

“We’re a bad-ass group of stylish WOC who’ve made clothing swaps cool,” reads the description on Radical Clothes Swap’s website. “Passionate about making the world a better (and less trashy place), each of us devotes our time and energy for free to this radical sustainable fashion cause, often storing the donated clothes and clothing swap equipment in our homes and car trunks.”

Recycling clothes is a radical act

The fashion industry is notorious for its encouragement of overconsumption, and is one of the world’s largest polluters, contributing 92 million tons of textile waste annually. Let’s visualize that: 92 million tons, or 184 billion pounds of waste. To get rid of that many clothes, the BBC estimates that a full dump truck would have to be emptied into a landfill every second for an entire year. Why so much waste? It’s reported that the average garment is only worn between seven to ten times before it’s thrown away. No, not given away, or sold, or donated. Thrown away.


Earth.org provides further disturbing facts. If no action is taken in the next fifteen years, the apparel industry’s global emissions will increase by 50% by 2030. The fashion industry is also responsible for 20% of global water waste, thanks to dyeing, finishing, and the production of materials like yarn and fiber. Ten percent of the ocean’s microplastic pollution comes from textiles, thanks to cheap materials like nylon and polyester, which shed microfilaments every time they’re washed and dried—then flow directly into the sewers. And if you’ve ever seen Finding Nemo, you know where that leads: our beloved oceans.

Oh, and did you know that returned clothes aren’t commonly resold? Two point six million tons of returned clothes end up in landfills—and that’s just in the United States. Just the act of returning clothes leaves an immense carbon footprint: in 2020, it was estimated that 16 million tons of CO2 emissions were released into the atmosphere because of online returns in America, which is the equivalent of 3.5 million cars driving non-stop for an entire year.

clothes, rack, reused, recycle, sustainabilityA patron browsing the selection at a Radical Clothes Swap event.Credit: Radical Clothes Swap

Well, that was a bummer, wasn’t it? Now, for the good news: it doesn’t have to be this way. Radical Clothes Swap has already made major strides towards a more sustainable future. One fashionista’s trash is another one’s treasure, and at RCS events, old garments lovingly gain new owners, extending their lifecycle by untold numbers of years.

“Our entire ethos is all about community and resource sharing,” shared Macias with VoyageLA in 2024. “We’re trying to decrease consumption and play with what you can do with what you have.”

Ready to radicalize your local clothing community? Luckily, the Radical Clothes Swap team has created a simple step-by-step template.


  1. Start a pile. Go through your closet and select three to five clothing items that have, in your heart, lost their luster. Whether it’s too big, too small, or fits just right but is in a pattern you find abhorrent these days, take this as a sign it’s time to move on. As a courtesy, make sure that each piece of clothing is actually gently used, not torn to shreds (Radical Clothes Swaps are not for worn-down hand-me-downs. If your item is unwearable, consider using a verified recycling outlet, like For Days). On clothing swap day, garments should be in good condition (ex. washed, neatly folded, lint-rolled, etc.)
  2. Round up your friends. Plan a date and start inviting! Be mindful and try your best to curate an inclusive swap, where all sizes, body types, and genders feel welcomed and are represented.
  3. Swap! This is the fun part. Make sure the environment is clean and ready to go beforehand, then it’s game time, baby. Blast your favorite tunes or consider serving a few snacks or drinks for an elevated vibe.
  4. Rinse and repeat. Then, it’s time to do it all over again.

“Sustainable fashion is not a one and done thing. Consistently buying second-hand and swapping your clothes for free can reduce the amount of clothing that ends up in landfills every year,” RCS reminds. “You can do your part (and save money) by hosting clothing swaps in your community. Love your clothes; love the planet!”

NOTE: Radical Clothes Shop is donations-based. To support their mission, consider donating on Venmo (@radicalclothesshop) or gift them a WordPress subscription.



Brought to you by Radical Clothes Swap's Venmo
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Forever 21 facing backlash from plus-size customers who received diet bars with their online orders

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Fat shaming has never been in style, and yet, the fashion industry seems to have it on lock.

Many Forever 21 customers have reported they've received samples of Atkins' new line of lemon bars with their plus-sized clothing orders. The bars are touted as a way to "treat yourself without worrying about your carb count." Yikes.

Needless to say, the free sample did notgo over well. Many customers feel as if the fast fashion retailer is trying to subtly tell them they need to lose weight.

RELATED: Macy's pulls plates from their stores for sending a 'toxic message'



Forever 21 responded, saying they aren't trying to target people who ordered plus-sized clothes. Everyone got the Atkins bar samples, and they're in fact not trying to tell people, "Hey, you could really stand to lose a few pounds." The retailer has since apologized for including the bar in their shipments.

"From time to time, Forever 21 surprises our customers with free test products from third parties in their e-commerce orders. The freebie items in question were included in all online orders, across all sizes and categories, for a limited time and have since been removed," Forever 21 said in a statement, per Buzzfeed News. "This was an oversight on our part and we sincerely apologize for any offense this may have caused to our customers, as this was not our intention in any way."

RELATED: Man exposes the absurdity of sexist marketing by creating shirts that label men like we do women

Regardless, it's still not a good look. The presence of the bar insinuates there's something wrong with the customer – regardless of their size. Opening a box to find a diet bar is going to make people feel like trash about their figure, even if there's nothing wrong with them.

We love the fun of getting surprised with free samples with our clothes, but Forever 21 should think harder about what they include next time.

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Heroes

9 reasons you shouldn't throw away clothes, and 4 things you can do instead.

Textile waste is a real problem that so often goes overlooked.

True
Savers + Value Village

It's springtime! The birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, and everyone's ready to clean out their closets.

There's something about warmer weather — it seems to make us want to do a complete makeover on our wardrobes and get rid of clutter around the house.

When it comes to unwanted items, sometimes it just feels good to purge and start fresh. No doubt there have been times when you've thrown things in the trash instead of taking them to a donation center. Perhaps you didn't have the time to drop it off, or you thought it was too far gone to be donated.

You're not alone. According to the 2017 State of Reuse Report, North Americans throw away roughly 81 pounds of textiles (clothing, towels, bedding, etc.) a year per person. Think of it this way: That's more than 26 billion pounds (!) heading into landfills each year across the U.S. and Canada alone.

Image via iStock.

Still not convinced? Here are nine more reasons to not throw away clothing.

1. Every time you toss a piece of clothing in the trash, you're costing your city or town money.

According to the EPA, it costs an average of $45 per ton to dispose of waste in a landfill. A fashion-focused city like New York City pays $20.6 million per year just to dispose of textile waste. That's a whole other level of wastefulness.

2. Your used clothes may be more usable than you think.

According to Savers' most recent study, 62% of people who admit to throwing away textiles do so because they didn't think a donation center would take them. This is an unfortunate misconception.

3. 95% of used textiles can be recycled or repurposed.

Take a minute to pick your jaw up off the floor. Yup, those are the stats from The Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association (SMART). Since people tend to think no one can use clothes with holes, used undergarments, or that shirt that got burned in a freak cooking accident, they don’t bother trying to recycle them. But just because it may not be wearable doesn't mean it won't serve a purpose. These items can have a second life as dishrags or even insulation.

4. Taking clothes to donation centers helps your local community.

Image via iStock.

In terms of giving back, the Savers survey found that 78% of people would prefer their charitable giving to benefit a local cause rather than a national cause, and 76% consider donating clothing and home goods "charitable giving." The textiles you bring to your local donation center will directly benefit members of your community.

5. The apparel industry is the second-largest industrial polluter in the world.

According to Forbes, the production of clothes (just clothes, not all textiles) is responsible for 10% of all carbon emissions on the planet. And since we know production won't stop, we should do what we can to offset these stats by reusing, recycling, and buying fewer clothes.

6. Clothes release toxic gas when they decompose in landfills.

As clothing joins the rest of the garbage in landfills, it breaks down and releases toxic greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane into the environment. In fact, landfills are the third-largest source of atmospheric methane on the planet.

7. It takes so much water to make a pair of jeans.

Up to 1,800 gallons, to be exact. That's more water than you can or will drink in five years. Just some food (or water) for thought.

8. It takes more energy to make a new pair of jeans than leaving the lights in your house on all night.

Sorry, clothes hounds, but this is reason enough to patch those tried and true jeans in your closet.

9. Fast fashion (garments typically worn less than five times, then thrown away) is a major contributor to clothing waste.

You know those cheaply made clothes that don't really hold up well in the wash, so you toss them after about a month or two? They produce 400% more carbon emissions per item per year than that one great outfit-making piece of clothing you wear 50 times and keep for a year or more.

Ready to do your part to support a nonprofit or charitable organization in your community while saving the planet? Here are a few ways you can make a difference by reducing textile waste.

1. DON'T throw away your clothes (whether they are good quality, used, or worn out). DO bring them to your local donation center.

Savers found that 96% of the people they polled are willing to drive up to 30 minutes to donate their unwanted clothing. So not only is it good to do, it's easy.

2. Have a clothing swap party!

Image by J R/Flickr.

Hate the idea of sorting through your clothes and lugging them somewhere without an immediate payoff? What if you could exchange them for new (to you) clothes and party down with your friends at the same time? That’s the sheer delight of a clothing swap party: You get to discard the clothes you no longer want and return home with ones you like, all at no cost to you.

3. Shop thrift.

Thrifting is on the rise, and millennials (as usual) are leading the charge. Most cities also have consignment shops where you can sell lightly used clothes or exchange them for other lightly used clothes (which, let’s face it, always seem cooler than our own). That's like recycling squared!

4. Find ways to reuse and repurpose your own clothes.

30% of the clothes you donate will be repurposed into a commercial or industrial wiping cloth. If you haveworn, stained, or torn clothing and textiles, why not just make your own rags for cleaning or arts and crafts?

Curtailing your clothing waste and reducing your carbon footprint can be an adjustment, but all it takes is a little bit of effort to change how you see what's in your closet.

From Your Site Articles
Heroes

This Canadian city has big plans for your old T-shirts.

"It's the circle of life..."

True
Savers

There's one in every closet.

It's torn at the hem and along the neckline. There are stains all over — some you remember, some you don't. It's been washed so many times that it's see-through, making it simultaneously the definition of comfort and completely unwearable in public — which is fine because it has shrunk in some places and stretched in others and hasn't really fit right in years.

Sometimes shabby-chic just isn't a really good look. Image via iStock.

It's your favorite T-shirt, and it really needs a new home. Markham, Ontario, wants to give it one.

This small-but-mighty suburb of Toronto has been recycling for a really long time.

They've recycled newspapers for nearly three decades, later expanding to aluminum cans, glass bottles, plastics, then electronics, then composting. There are places to drop off appliances, household waste, and old electronics. But until recently, there was nothing for textiles. That's a problem for nearby landfills.

Landfills: A great place for hungry birds — not a great place for your clothes. Image via iStock.

A 2015 survey of Ontario residents found that only 15% of unwanted textiles in the region were recycled.

For the Markham region specifically, that meant that about 4,425 tons of textile waste ended up at the garbage dumps every year, making up about 7% of their volume. City sanitation workers knew it was happening — they already operate a "clear bag" program for waste so everything on its way to a landfill is easy to see. And with fast fashion encouraging consumers to buy cheap, quick clothes with short lives, the mountain of textiles in the local landfill was only going to get bigger.

For the government of Markham, this felt like something they could fix — or even eliminate completely.

Their first step in taking on textile waste was talking to the people of Markham about it. What they found out was fascinating.

They discovered that residents were open to donating and recycling more of their textiles, but that they only wanted to pass on their nicest articles of clothing. Claudia Marsales, Markham's senior waste manager, described the city's findings to the CBC. "People only thought you could donate something that was perfect."

While that's very thoughtful, it misses the second life that many less-than-perfect textiles can have after being recycled. Less-fashionable or rewearable clothes, along with other unwanted textiles and fabrics, can be repurposed in many fascinating ways: making automotive rags, home insulation, carpet padding, diapers, landscaping fabrics, even "smart skin" for medical researchers. There are second lives for clothes, blankets, sleeping bags, furniture fabric, mattress padding, backpacks, rugs, cushions, curtains, and, — since it's Canada — winter outerwear and gear.

Earlier this year, the town introduced "Markham Tackles Textiles," a new program designed to make fabric recycling easier than ever before.

Now there are adorably designed textile donation bins located in convenient places around the city where people can drop off unwanted textiles. A local charitable organization sorts through the donations and preps them for their second life.

Pictured: your old clothes and bedding, en route to a brand-new life. Image via iStock.

The nicest and most fashionable clothing and bedding donations will head to local charity thrift shops for sale. Others will be bundled into 1,000-pound bales and sold to private companies for reuse in a variety of industrial purposes. Only when all other opportunities for reuse are exhausted are some products sent on to the landfill.

Getting serious about textile recycling is one more step toward sustainability for this Canadian city.

It's already Canada's first "monarch-friendly" city, devoted to protecting the habitat of the popular but endangered butterfly. It operates one of the largest solar-powered installations in the region. Markham is focused on local food and green transportation, managing a community seed library, regular farmers markets, and a 125-mile network of bike paths. Now it's committing to another incredibly ambitious goal: recycling 100% of unwanted textiles in the community.

For Claudia Marsales, this textile recycling program is also part of a campaign to educateMarkham residents about the social andenvironmental effects of disposablefashion and encourage them to think about the end-of-life for all fabric products they buy.

As for that unwanted old T-shirt you can't seem to let go of, this might be the perfect place. As Marsales told the York Region this month: “The message is we will take every piece you have.”

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