GOODbye

A love letter to the GOOD group community -

When we started throwing clothing swaps in the backyard of a green bungalow in East Austin, we didn’t expect that it would lead to the creation of GOOD group ATX.

Driven by our shared passion for environmentalism & fashion, our intention in throwing our first clothing swap was to show our peers that the clothing items they wanted, needed, & craved already existed in their neighbors’ closet. There was no need to spend money on clothing items that required raw materials, production, or shipping, especially if that meant supporting fast fashion brands that destroy our environment & trap garment workers into modern day slavery.

During that first event, we watched strangers sharing clothes & noticed how it prompted story telling & built new connections in our community. It was an eye-opening experience, & we wanted to share the power of clothing swaps with the greater Austin community.

So that’s exactly what we did! Over the past 6 years, here is what we have accomplished:

• Built a slow fashion community of over 2,000+ slow fashion baddies.

• Thrown 20+ clothing swap events across Austin with the generous support of volunteers, local businesses, & monetary donations.

• Rehomed an estimated 10,000+ clothing items, donating an estimated 40% of those items to charities, like Val Verde Border Humanitarian Crises, Thriftish, & Dittmar ATX Free Fridge.

• Rebranded from GOOD girls ATX to GOOD group ATX to be inclusive of everyBODY.

• Reinvested all donated funds to source the majority of our supplies locally from FB marketplace.

• Created avenues to produce second-hand merchandise with local screenprinters, like Goody Bag, realizing that all merch will inevitably become waste! #antimerch

• Organized an upcycling workshop to celebrate Earth Day with Future Front, Soul Studio, & other upcycler vendors.

• Joined powerful conversations with other change makers in panels and interviews.

• Developed multiple iterations of our check-in process & impact reporting system (thanks for counting all of those clothes at the start of the swaps!).

• Created the concept of The Living Closet with Slow Fashion Festival & brought it to SXSW with reFIND.

• Supported local upcyclers with our free, upcycling program, GOOD garbage.

• Created an upcycled fashion collection with Formula S7 using materials sourced from our clothing swaps

• Planned a multi-faceted fundraiser which raised $2,000 to support humans at the border with our friends at Val Verde Border Humanitarian & The Artlands Creative.

• Shared hundreds of stories about the provenance of clothing items, connecting people & organizations for the greater GOOD.

So, why are saying GOODbye? As the volume of clothing items has grown, we have felt the increased emotional & physical toll of sorting, storing, & rehoming clothing items for our community. Instead of managing a business while balancing full-time jobs, we’d rather be advocates for the existing slow fashion initiatives & organizations that have made the Austin community so strong.

We plant to “compost” GOOD group ATX, dismantling and distributing its pieces so it can create new life in our community. We will share our stories, data, & supplies to whomever can make use of it. We will also be donating all leftover funds to Heartening. We believe their sustainability project embodies The Living Closet & kindly ask you to join us in supporting them by volunteering your time, donating your money, & telling your friends about their initiative.

We still believe in the power of swapping clothes amongst friends & communities & love seeing the rise of clothing swaps throughout Austin. We’re incredibly grateful for everyBODY’s support - your clothing, volunteer hours, donations, platforms, & stories made the last 6 years possible - proving that together, we can do GOOD.

stay GOOD,

Marcella & Kara, Co-Creators of GOOD group ATX

howdy@good-group.org