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Journalist completes charity shop challenge

A former local press journalist has completed a year-long challenge of only buying clothes from charity shops.

Debbie Attwood started her career on the Kent and Sussex Courier as a sub-editor and now works as online editor of fashion magazine iFashion.

She started the project, which saw her bypassing high street shops such as Topshop in favour of charity shops such as Oxfam, as a means of combining her passion of writing and shopping in charity shops.

Debbie, whose aim through the challenge was to encourage more people to shop at charity shops, said: “It went really well and I am enjoying shopping normally again. I’m glad I managed to do it for a whole year.

“I still shop in charity shops, they are better than people give them credit for.”

While she was doing the challenge Debbie was also asked to style the window of a British Heart Foundation charity shop in her home town of Tunbridge Wells.

She added: “The amount of people shopping in charity shops went up in Tumbridge Wells around the time I was doing the challenge. The BHF was always packed.”

In a final blog piece Debbie posted a video with her top seven outfits from the year.  Top finds included dresses from Warehouse and Asos which she would mix with older items for a night out.

She said that some items, such as shoes and trousers, were particularly hard to find and though she saved money from not spending as much on clothes she would spend it on going out and food instead.

She added: “It was a great year and I got some amazing pieces. Now, however, I still want to write about all things ‘charity style’ but add in some vintage, designer and high street too. Now I am buying from anywhere again it has made me realise how good charity shopping can be.”

Visit Debbie’s blog at That Charity Style Blog.