Knof, Knof, Who’s There? A Novel Chain of Reuse Boutiques in Slovenia

How is the Stara Šola model similar to or maybe different from other business models followed elsewhere? Has it helped to build awareness on the importance of going sustainable and circular when it comes to fashion?  
Mojca Žganec Metelko and Nina Goriaeva: Our business model is a bit different from other business models that Slovenian second-hand shops have. We accept donations from local people, and then sort, check and resell them. We don’t import clothes for sale from other countries, we don’t buy clothes either. It has definitely helped to build awareness among people of different ages. If in the beginning—12 years ago—many people considered it something shameful to buy clothes at a second-hand store, but today in our stores we see both young people and the adult generation. Second-hand clothing is no longer seen as clothing only for the poor, but as an opportunity to purchase something unique, vintage, or even branded at a good price.   
It [the second part of the question] works the same way on the other side. Not all our donors buy clothes second-hand. There are also those who prefer to simply get rid of unnecessary clothes. And instead of throwing them into a landfill, they bring those to us.  

What do the numbers look like today? What is your turnover like (both in terms of units sold as well as revenues)? How many stores do you have now? Are those your own, or franchised out?   
Mojca Žganec Metelko and Nina Goriaeva: Today, we have six stores throughout Slovenia, one of them is in Ljubljana. Three of them are franchised out, and three are our own. Together, we make around €300.000 income yearly from sales of used clothes, furniture and other items. We sell around 30.000 items per year.  

How does the supply chain work? Could you please elaborate?  
Mojca Žganec Metelko and Nina Goriaeva: So, for now four stores accept donations directly from local people. We check and sort the content. Around 10–20% are sent to the utility company under “mixed waste” and that goes for incineration (because it can’t be reused or resold). The other 90–80% we resell in our shops and online store, donate to organisations that help homeless people or people in need, or cut cotton T-shirts, as well as bedding, towels, bathrobes into rags and sell them to factories.  
For example, in October we collected 860 kg of textiles and 80 kg of shoes. About 140 kg went to the utility company, around 60 kg went to cotton rags. About 180 kg of the textiles was donated to different organisations.  

Reuse and seconds are terms that are increasingly gaining currency. What is it like in Slovenia? You are based in Krško. Has the practice caught on there? How about in Ljubljana?  
Mojca Žganec Metelko and Nina Goriaeva: Yes, it’s nice to see how the second-hand culture is becoming more and more popular in the world, and Slovenia is not far behind. Today, our stores have two different concepts: the first concept is that people bring us clothes, and we resell them at low prices, but in such stores you need to search for what you need/want because usually there is a large selection, and these stores are quite crowded. That’s the kind of store we have in Krško and some other towns (Brežice, Litija, Sevnica).  
The second concept is that we ourselves hand-select clothes from those that are donated by people. These are mostly vintage clothing of higher quality, famous brands, designers or fashionable silhouettes. We fix something, steam everything before selling. Such clothes are more expensive, there is less choice, but you want to buy every item. We also redesign some clothes. Usually, these are items of an outdated style or damaged (holes, unwashable stains) made of high-quality materials that are a pity to throw away into a landfill. We remake such clothes into modern ones. These collections usually sell well. We have stores with this concept in Ljubljana and in Novo Mesto and the online shop.

These two concepts allow us to target different audiences: those, who want/need to buy a lot of clothes or are searching for cheap clothes(or both). The other group are people who combine chic, fashion design and vintage—they hunt for vintage treasures and want to be unique.

The store in Krško has existed for more than 10 years. We survived the COVID-19 times. So yes, the practice has caught on here, but we have improved the concept of the shop several times. Our store in Ljubljana is quite young (less than a year), but we see how people responded, especially tourists—they love our store.

Given the backdrop of the Stara Šola boutiques, how is your work on a circular laboratory working out? How does it work at the city/local level? How are the local governments/authorities reacting to the idea? Please elaborate.  
Mojca Žganec Metelko and Nina Goriaeva: Since we get on an average 1 tonne of textiles per month per shop, we are looking for other, longer lasting solutions to prevent the generation of textile waste. We are working on circular solutions to transform the waste textile into semi-products for furniture and the construction industry, as in these sectors the materials have a long lifespan—60 and more years. The recycled materials can also replace virgin materials from fossil fuels or wood. Our circular development is still based only on prolonging the life of textile materials and carbon sequestration, but cradle-to-cradle for textile is now globally still just a dream.  

One of the many reasons that reuse and seconds are being pushed today is the problem of clothing waste that happens if garments are allowed to end up in landfills. What is the extent of the problem in Slovenia? Is it under control?  
Mojca Žganec Metelko and Nina Goriaeva: Sadly, a lot of the textiles which are discarded in Slovenia into different bins for used textile still goes to landfills in Africa. We have some collection companies who also make rags, but most of the clothes are exported to big “raghouses” in Europe—so, information of where our clothes actually go is hard to trace.  

We are working on establishing a big sorting centre for textiles in Slovenia together with many stakeholders, where we would focus on local reuse of textiles and development of recycled textile semi-products for different type of product production. The crucial thing is a shift in people’s minds to buy less and bigger quality and anti-greenwashing legislation for big textile chains, who will need to partner with us in solving the problem of the over-production they are creating.