Preowned items can be valued, exchanged and repaired in a space playfully inspired by the London Stock Exchange.
15 May 2023. Selfridges launches The Stock Market at the Corner Shop, a month-long circular experience where customers can uncover the value of what they already own, exchange items for Selfridges credit and restore or upcycle clothing and accessories.
Drawing inspiration from the towering 360 degree desks and the rotundas of data-filled screens found at the London Stock Exchange, The Corner Shop has been transformed into a ‘trading floor’, an immersive hub for buying, selling, repairing and upcycling.
Reselfridges stockbrokers man the ‘trading desk’, encouraging customers to “go long” and enhance the value of products to keep or resell. The stockbrokers will connect visitors to the very best circular services from SOJO, SneakersER, The Handbag Clinic and Vintage Threads, as well as a series of bookable services from upcyclers in residence, making signs of wear and tear points of pride and interest, like hand beaded moth holes or bespoke customisations including frills and applique.
The launch takes place as part of Worn Again, a season of secondhand and circular shopping experiences at Selfridges. Running until August, Worn Again explores ideas, collaborations and events to keep products in circulation for longer and dial up the pleasure and reciprocity of shopping secondhand, as Selfridges aims 45% of transactions to come from circular products and services by 2030.
Services available at The Stock Market include:
Resell and shop secondhand
Visitors to The Stock Market can have items from their wardrobes such as shoes and accessories valued by a team of expert authenticators, with the option to sell to Selfridges in exchange for store credit. A curation of secondhand clothing and accessories will also be available from partners including Vintage Threads and The Handbag Clinic.
Repair and restore
Extend the life of worn and treasured items with services include bag repainting and repair, restoration of leather items, upcycling and downcycling of clothing and sneaker and shoe restoration. Services available from The Handbag Clinic, Vintage Threads, SneakersER and SOJO.
Tailoring and alterations
A team of expert tailors from SOJO will be available to make alterations to any clothes, such as hemming clothes, altering waists, re-attaching buttons and adding zips.
Upcyclers in Residence
A series of upcyclers in residence at The Corner Shop will help to revive wardrobes. Through daily sessions, upcycling experts will demonstrate different ways to breathe new life into clothes. Sessions include screen printing, appliqué, tassels and ties and mend and reknit. Tickets will cost £10 for a two-hour slot and profits from ticket sales will go to Oxfam.
The Stock Market at the Corner Shop is open until 10th June
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Notes to Editors:
About Worn Again
Worn Again is a season of secondhand and circular shopping experiences running until August. It brings new destinations, collaborations, ideas and events to customers through Reselfridges, Selfridges’ ecosystem of circular products and services, to make shopping secondhand and circular as easy, exciting and desirable as shopping new season.
Customers can participate in Worn Again via a unique mix of experimental circular destinations, products, services and experiences in Selfridges London, Manchester and Birmingham stores and at Selfridges.com. These include an exclusive Marine Serre atelier concept, secondhand fashion and lifestyle destination The Edit by Reselfridges, a Swap Shop series, Made to Order rethought as Made In Selfridges, a charity Car Boot Sale, an outdoor furniture fair and a reimagined Stock Market in the Corner Shop, where items can be valued, traded, repaired or upcycled. Permanent new Reselfridges additions include Subscription and Rent to Buy services.
About SOJO
SOJO is a London-based fashion-tech platform, founded by Josephine Philips, re-inventing the clothing repair and tailoring industry. Launching in 2021 as the UK’s first clothing repairs and alterations app, SOJO delivers emissions-free door-to-door repair and alterations services to customers via their London based tailoring studio, while providing an integrated and scalable solution to e-commerce fashion brands to help reduce returns and increase circularity within their businesses.
About Josephine Philips, SOJO
Josephine Philips founded SOJO immediately after graduating from university in June 2020, with the mission of helping to make the fashion industry more circular by revolutionising the clothing repair and tailoring sector. A lover of vintage fashion, Josephine continually found herself falling for secondhand pieces that were not in her size. With no convenient way to get the pieces tailored, she got to work to create a solution, launching the UK’s first app dedicated to alterations and repairs in January 2021.
As one of the UK’s most exciting young tech entrepreneurs, Philips has secured financial backing from key industry players including Simon Beckerman, Founder of Depop, Yael Gairola, Pangaia’s former COO, Peter Hawkings, Creative Director at Tom Ford. In 2022 Josephine featured on Forbes Europe 30 under 30 in the Technology category, selected as one of 40 recipients of Google for Startups Black Founders Fund and spotlighted on the inaugural Vogue Business 100 Innovators list.
About The Handbag Clinic
Founded in 2013, The Handbag Clinic is the longest-established luxury restoration and preowned retailers in the UK operating through stores and concessions across the UK including London, Newcastle, York and Colchester as well as franchises in Europe and the Middle East.
The Handbag Clinic’s integrated offering of ‘Buy, Sell, Restore, Authenticate’ uniquely combines restoration with authentication and resale to deliver a seamless service for conscious luxury connoisseurs and collectors. With a mission to preserve the past whilst mindfully reinventing for the future, The Handbag Clinic is a proud gatekeeper of sustainable luxury. It stocks a hand-picked collection of authentic pre-owned luxury handbags, luggage and accessories from the world’s most coveted brands including Chanel, Hermès and Louis Vuitton and restores 700+ bags and shoes, including luxury trainers, each month.
