#Oxclusive

After 4 months volunteering at Oxfam online in Batley, today was my final day, and what a day it was! As a placement student at Oxfam, I’ve had the amazing opportunity to be involved in the organisation and planning of #Oxclusive.

Oxfams first ever exclusive bloggers event consisted of a tour of Wastesaver to find out what happens to everything you donate, a fashion show exhibiting just a few of the many on trend garments we have at Oxfam Online, a quick Q&A during refreshments and finally a chance to buy some items from a couple of pop up shops.

The day started at 10:30am with our wonderful voluntary models arriving and getting straight into having their hair and make-up done whilst myself and the other placement students went through the last minute wardrobe issues. We then had a few run throughs of the catwalk to insure all models and helpers knew what they were doing, and it was then that we realised how much time was starting to fly. We all had a quick break for lunch before the models had hair and make-up touch up. The excitement really kicked in when we were told the bloggers were starting to arrive and I had to escort all the models to their changing rooms to get ready for the show!

For our fashion show we had 6 trends we chose for the season, Denim, Suede, Oriental Embellishment, Florals, Paisley and Bohemian Wanderer. Each placement student was given a trend to hand pick the garments related to the trend and style 5 outfits to send down the catwalk. I was given the Denim trend, which at first I thought I might struggle with as I am not one to double denim, however, the amazing range of on trend clothing Oxfam receives made styling the outfits a lot easier.

Here's my Denim collection.

Straight after the event I had to help reorganise all the clothes from the catwalk, that hadn’t already been picked for buying by the models that wore them, ready to go out to our pop up shop to give the bloggers a chance to purchase them. As well as the catwalk clothes we also had a few block price rails full of clothing I had previously put together, a homewares table full of beautiful tablecloths, blankets and pillows, and finally our Up-cycling table promoting Oxfams Etsy store. After serving all our customers I even spotted this beautiful beautiful bottle green velvet waistcoat with the price of only £8 that I just had to purchase for myself!

From this event Oxfam made a £150 profit from the pop up shops, promoted the online shop as an on trend fashion business, helped raise awareness of the work Oxfam does and made a few great contacts along the way. I myself have had an amazing time and think the day couldn’t have gone better!

Check out what treasures you can find for yourself at Oxfams Online Shop.
Or get the latest news from the Oxfam Batley team on Facebook.