Unique second hand clothing pop-up shop heading to Crawley

Second life fashion company ‘we are’ is heading to the County Mall on Saturday (September 4), with the shop opening at 9.30am.

The shop has a unique selling point, charging customers for clothes by weight at £20 a kilo.

But if you only buy one item, for example a t-shirt that weighs approximately 0.25g, you will only be charged £5.

Founder of ‘we are’, Matt Griffiths, wanted his shop to change perceptions about second hand clothing, and add an element of fun to the experience, with customers happily treasure hunting through their racks.

He said: "I would think there will be a bit of buzz because people like it, it’s fun, it's different.

"We are interested to see what happens in a shopping centre and in that environment because it’s in a good location.

"What has really interested us about this is that a lot of people think it’s just for students but the game has changed.

“If we do this in a nice, clean, light environment it will get all sorts of people in who have never bought second hand or used merchandise and certainly all our test experiments it is everybody who shops with us.

"The treasure hunt idea pioneered by TK Maxx with those long rails - people like that way of shopping and that’s how we are doing it."

The shop has already proved to be a hit in Cornwall, attracting a large crowd of people who wanted to peruse what was on offer at ‘we are’.

Matt was looking forward to visiting Crawley, and said that ‘we are’ was only growing as a business.

He added: "Crawley is a really interesting place because demographically in the UK it’s like the model town in terms of age and average income so for a retailer it’s a very interesting test store to come to Crawley.

"We have a nice location so we are looking forward to it.

"Our first event in Truro four weeks ago, we had 300 ticket sales. We did one last week and had over 1,100 ticket sales.

"We have one event on September 5 on the Kings Road and we already have 1,100 people coming to that."

"It feels to me that the customers like our offering.”

The pop up shop is also looking for local designers who want to work and collaborate with ‘we are’.

Matt said: “We are interested in promoting young designers from the local area.

“We do it in each area we go to but have found it difficult to find one in Crawley.

“It’s an opportunity for them to show their goods. [email protected] is the contact email.”

For more information, please visit https://www.weare.shop/