The Beauty of the Bag

Sara K Arnold
Sep 27
3 min read

Updated: Oct 22

Community Spotlight

The Beauty of the Bag

The Clothing Loop's simple clothing exchange system is creating community and preventing clothing waste

by Sandra Niessen

Photos courtesy of The Clothing Loop

Today I received my first bag of clothing from the Clothing Loop! Katie brought it to my door early this morning. A bag full of goodies. I’m finding all kinds of things. From Yves St. Laurent to Yvette. Faux fur to foxy. Summer to winter. Small to large. Yesteryear to Now. Scarves to jackets. Black and white to outrageous colour. Katie had pulled something out for her mother. I’m going to call a friend over to see if she likes it. Maybe she will join.

Katie and I are newcomers to The Clothing Loop . We congratulated each other and talked about how it works and what to do next. We are learning the ropes. There are 40 of us in the loop, and we have 9 bags in circulation, each with a number. The bags with even numbers are passed from 'A' to ‘B’ and ‘B’ to ‘C’, ‘C’ to ‘D’ and so on. The bags with uneven numbers are passed from Z to Y to X and so on. Eventually everyone gets to sift through every bag. En route, the content changes. The beauty of the bag is that you simply take out what you want. Anything, and as much as you want! You put in anything you are done with (clean and in good shape). Until the bag is full. The honour system is the oil of the machine. There are no obligations besides the rules of the loop. (These are outlined clearly under FAQ on the Clothing Loop website). When the bag makes its way back and our contribution is still in there, we are obliged to take it back and find another way to deal with it. The Clothing Loop is an exchange system: it doesn’t deal with waste or with money, only the possibility of re-use. Simple - and especially fun!

The Clothing Loop began in Amsterdam during the pandemic.

“It worked so well that soon several Dutch cities and regions followed, and it snowballed throughout the Netherlands, and even across borders. By now there are hundreds of Loops. And not just in densely populated areas, the system works everywhere! With our guidance, support and community building efforts, this local initiative grew into the powerful movement it is today. Together we have saved thousands of kilos of clothing, neighbors have gotten to know each other, and we brought about a real change in behavior with regard to our textile consumption.” - Clothing Loop Website

It won’t come as a surprise that the bag is overflowing. That says a lot about who we are as a society: drowning in stuff. The limit to what we can put in the bag is the amount the bag can hold. If it is stuffed – like my first one was – we have to wait until it comes back, and try again. In a time of gross and negligent systemic over-production, even giving the stuff away free is a challenge. The real solution will only be found in reducing production, but we are working together as a community to expand use and at least put off the inevitable trek to the dump. This is part of defashioning.

But there is more to it than just exchanging clothes. We are creating community.

“After all, if you buy only six items less than you normally would in a year, you save about 40 kilos of CO2 emissions: the equivalent of driving one gasoline car from Amsterdam to Paris. Our goal is to reach 1 million swappers within the next 5 years. This saves as much CO2 emissions as driving that same car around the world 5,000 times.“ - Clothing Loop Website

But there is more to it than just exchanging clothes. We are creating community. It was fun to meet Katie, and when another bag makes its way to me in the opposite direction, I get to meet her at her home and we will have another chat. I notice that people are also expanding the use of our group app. Someone has extra school supplies: "Does anybody need them?" Another has hiking boots. As our group comes up to its fifth anniversary, I have been talking with the coordinator about using the celebration to bring the community together to discuss where we can go from here. The sky is the limit and that applies to the power of community.