Cowley Community Closet is a self-described, “sustainable, anti-capitalist, queer-run collective”, founded by students Delphi, Abby and Connie in the spirit of creating a diverse and inclusive community within Oxford. They began with swap shops, creating a space for people to come together and exchange clothing and have since incorporated sewing workshops and free self-defence classes. Cherwell spoke with Delphi about the project co-directed by the three.
Talking about the inspiration behind Cowley Community Closet, Delphi tells me “it was just kind of serendipitous. Abby and I went to secondary school together, so we’ve known each other since we were eleven, and we both went on to do our postgraduate degrees at Oxford and met Connie there at a party. We just got along really well. We were all rocking the dyed hair and a kind of sparkly situation. We spent ages hanging out with each other, having hair dying parties, and swapping a lot of our clothes. And then we thought it would be really fun to invite other people into it and we had no idea it would get this big.”
The most important thing to the group is creating something that aligns with their values: a clothing swap naturally fit into their anti-capitalist ethos. Delphi told Cherwell about the thinking behind this: “Particularly within the fashion industry, there’s so much waste and there’s so much abuse of human rights that it was a no-brainer. We don’t orient ourselves around financial value at all. For any item that you bring into the swap you get one token, and for anything that you want to take you give one token back. That means people don’t have to be worrying about cash value if they need a warm coat, they can get a warm coat without having to bring us loads in the first place. It focuses more on the items finding the right home, where they’ll be well loved, rather than on the potential cash value of something.”
Cowley Community Closet found its first home in a pub called The Star in Cowley, enabling them to move the clothing swaps out of their bedrooms and open them up to the public. As the number of people attending the swaps quickly grew, they relocated to Common Ground in Jericho for more space. With Common Grounds’ future rendered uncertain by the University’s proposed redevelopment plans for Wellington Square, and Cowley Community Closet’s sister community closet in Cardiff being recently evicted from their venue, we talk about the necessity of protecting third spaces.
“Creating community was very much what we wanted out of the swap. Yes, the clothing is great but it’s so much more than that. For me personally, I was looking for sober accessible spaces, because I’m a wheelchair user. A lot of young people don’t have these spaces. And you never know how connecting to another person may help you in the future. We can all help each other, even just spending more time socialising and meeting your neighbours, it’s all so beneficial to literally everything that happens in your life. We were keen to not have it situated in the university either. We love it when students are there, but we also want it to be somewhere that feels open and accommodating to people who are residents. I love seeing what people pick out and the shared experience of doing the same activity, occupying space.”
Delphi tells me about how Cowley Community Closet’s self-defence classes, which are free and open to anyone who feels vulnerable, was a community suggestion. “We met Emily, who is a jiu-jitsu master [who came to] one of our swaps. She said she was interested in doing a free self-defence class and we said, ‘we would love to help facilitate that!’ The classes are very fun and popular and a very organic growth for us.”
Having now organised hundreds of swap shops, I asked Delphi what her favourite find has been so far: “Ooh, I think I probably know that for everyone. Mine has to be this beautiful pink tulle skirt. It’s hot pink, it matches my hat, it’s fluffy. I love it. I would put money on Connie’s favourite being the cream leather cowboy boots she found; they belonged to a burlesque dancer who brought us this huge crate of shoes. It was amazing, we love her. And then Abby has got an excellent collection of botanical shirts. I think we are always blown away by the beautiful things that people bring in, and that was what started it all: with beautiful items that just weren’t being treasured the way that they could have been.”
