Creative Dundee's story
Creative Dundee works with the Wardrobe (previously known as The Community Wardrobe) to desigmatise second hand clothing. The Wardrobe (run by Transition Dundee) acts as a place to learn all about climate change, what's going on around the city and how you can get involved. They also host upcycling and repair workshops to help users build the confidence and ability to mend and prolong the life of your clothes, reducing the amount of clothing going to landfill.
The Community Wardrobe opened its doors in October 2020, with two principles: to keep the mountains of clothes donated to the project out of landfill, whilst making free clothes available to those in need in the most dignified way possible. With the aim to encourage a culture of wearing second hand clothes, and inspire new shopping habits, they wanted to offer an alternative to the culture of fast fashion.
As time went on, and the clothes kept coming, the staff realised that they needed to do more, so they began encouraging visitors to turn those clothes into something else; T-shirts became bags, pretty fabric was used to make bookmarks, and scraps were turned into brooches and wreaths.
In the last year (2020-2021), the Community Wardrobe gave out 1,850kg of clothes to 901 people‚ saving of 42.4 tonnes CO2e, which is the equivalent of taking 9,134 cars off the road.
The Wee Wardrobe is part of 'CULTIVATE', a regional leadership programme for creative practitioners and local communities to collaboratively explore new ways of embedding creativity and grassroots collective action for climate justice, across the Tay region.
Led by Creative Dundee over three years, and funded by Creative Scotland's Culture Collective, this pilot project brings together creative practitioners and community groups to explore climate justice in a practical and meaningful way.
Useful learnings from Creative Dundee
Focus on the main areas the organisation wants to improve.
Creative Dundee's metrics
Community engagement.
