{"id":8943,"date":"2016-03-22T15:48:47","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T07:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/?p=8943"},"modified":"2022-03-30T16:46:27","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T08:46:27","slug":"green-ladies-second-hand-charity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/2016\/03\/green-ladies-second-hand-charity\/","title":{"rendered":"A Fashionable Cause"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Green Ladies boutique sells second-hand clothes for charity<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>by Gloria Lee<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Would you buy a second-hand wedding dress? A shopper at Green Ladies actually considered it, which surprised Michelle Lai Wai-ting, the manager of the social enterprise store.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA wedding is a big day in a person\u2019s life, but she didn\u2019t mind using a second-hand dress,\u201d Lai says.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately the customer didn\u2019t buy the dress, but the fact that she even tried fits in with the store\u2019s mission. Green Ladies on Queen\u2019s Road West is no ordinary boutique; it\u2019s the first consignment store in Hong Kong. The charity St. James\u2019 Settlement started it in 2008 to promote the reuse of fashion products. It collects and resells trendy clothes, shoes, and accessories at reasonable prices, so people realise second-hand clothes aren\u2019t necessarily old and yellowing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen customers enter the shop, they realise that second-hand clothes can be new and clean,\u201d says Joyce Lin, Project Officer of Green Ladies.<\/p>\n<p>New consignors have to sign a contract with Green Ladies, and the staff will shortlist available items for sale afterwards. The boutique only collects current season items, and they mainly collect casual clothes rather than business atire. The recycled clothes will be on sale for two months. If a product is sold, the individual consignor can get 10, 20, or 30 per cent of the price, or give all the revenue back to support the boutique. The revenue is used to train employees and to promote green living.<\/p>\n<p>If the items remain unsold after two months, they will be sent to different St James\u2019 Settlement centres and sold for charity at even lower prices for middle-aged women who are less well-off. This helps lower-income groups, and ensures that nothing is wasted.<\/p>\n<p>Another major goal of Green Ladies is to provide job opportunities and training for middle-aged women. The three branches employ 40 workers, and four-fifths of the crew are middle-aged women. They get regular training to hone their skills and team spirit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWorking here has helped me physically and mentally,\u201d says Vivian (who prefers not to disclose her full name), a middle-aged salesperson at Green Ladies. \u201cI am proud of working here and I recommend this place to my family and friends.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Green Ladies now has three branches, with a fourth one opening soon. Check out their website <a href=\"http:\/\/greenladies.sjs.org.hk\/ENG\/main.html%20\"><em>http:\/\/greenladies.sjs.org.hk\/ENG\/main.html<\/em> <\/a>or sjsgreenladies on Facebook and Instagram for more details.<\/p>\n<p><em>Edited by Jayce Lai<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Green Ladies is Hong Kong\u2019s first consignment store \u2013 collecting and reselling unwanted fashion to reduce waste. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1938,18],"tags":[43,442,205],"class_list":["post-8943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue-139","category-vchoice","tag-fashion","tag-green","tag-hong-kong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8943"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8999,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8943\/revisions\/8999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}