Event Review: The Most Hyperbolically Stupendous Clothing Swap Ever!

This past weekend the boyfriend and I dragged a huge blue bin full of stuff that had been rejected out of our closets to The Most Hyperbolically Stupendous Clothing Swap Ever! at Cellspace. Our hope had been to score at least a couple cool new items to improve our fashion standing, but, like our friend Chandler, who showed up with a suitcase of designer duds and left with most of them still in it, we sorta concluded that our stuff was way cooler than the the lame threads others had brought to unload.

Two acquaintances of ours, Monica and Jason, are the brains behind swapsf and this excellent idea - invite everybody to bring their old threads to a clothing swap, and then donate whatever is left to charity. Add some DJs, some drinks, some coffee, and you've got the makings of a fine hipster meet-up. The big problem, however, was that the crowd well exceeded the space, and after the swap had been open for only an hour it was like a scene out of some 1950s movie where the savagery of women is illustrated by their fighting over items at a one-day Macy's sale - except in this case, there were a lot more trucker hats. Every table was completely surrounded by culture vultures grabbing whatever caught their eyes as new carrion was dumped on the pile - in one case I saw someone come up with a bag of t-shirts, and within ten seconds they were all gone. Whatever remained on the tables for the casual browser were the items that had already been deemed unfit by the hiperatti, stuff that I could have found at Community Thrift on a bad day. Since we had long ago decided that the things we brought were going out the door one way or the other, it was overall a better experience than having those bitches at Crossroads pick through our stuff, but I was really disappointed that most people seemed to have brought stuff that was, well, just not that cool - and who knew that so many hipsters were size extra large? The boyfriend did score a cool suit jacket and a nice black shirt, but it seemed an awful low swap ratio.

I think this is a great idea, and I hope that the success of the last two events will move the next clothing swap to a bigger space, and perhaps inspire those participating to bring more than what they've decided is too worn out, or too ugly, to remain in their own closets.