Independent shopping: Ragtrade Boutique

Within Christmas Steps Shopping Quarter resides one of Bristol’s little-known gems, Ragtrade Boutique.

Built on the concept of recycling pre-loved clothing, Ragtrade encourages women to re-home those beautiful but neglected garments wasting away in every women’s wardrobe. Customers can sell, trade and buy second-hand clothing and accessories. 

Ragtrade are very fussy about what they take and that is evident in the quality of clothing on the rails. A surprising amount of items in the shop still have their original tags on. Owner Alison tells us, “the average woman admits to owning six items of clothing they’ve never worn!”

The clean, brightly lit rails at the front of the shop showcase the newest stock, while a small corridor leads through to a boudoir-style area at the back which feels a bit like stumbling upon a treasure trove. Amongst other things, here you’ll find the fabled £5 – £10 rail. 

Stock ranges from top-end high street to designer, with some amazing deals to be found. At the top end of the scale, we found a Vivian Westwood Red Label blouse with the tag still on for £66, a pair of Jimmy Choos for £99, and a Marc Jacob faux fur at £81. 

So what’s the concept behind Ragtrade? How does it work? 

Basically, it’s encouraging people to recycle their clothing. So people bring their stuff into me and I’ll sell it on commission for them. It has a seven week selling period  in the shop and if it sells for them, they can either take the cash, in which case they get 40% of what I sell it for, or they can leave it in the shop and it acts like a credit note for them. So everyone that sells in here has their own little bank account. But often people will leave their credit in the shop and purchase something else with it.

Every item has a strict seven-week selling period. If the item hasn’t sold within the first four weeks the price is then reduced by one third. It runs for two weeks at a third of the price, and if it still hasn’t sold at the end of those two weeks it goes on the £5 – £10 rail.  

Recycling clothes is a brilliant idea. Is that something you did before Ragtrade? 

Yeah, always! Before this, my friend and I set up a children’s second-hand clothing business which was doing exactly the same thing. We started it when she’d just had her second and I’d just had my third child, and we were just realising how expensive children’s clothing is, when children only wear it for a short amount of time.

And there are so many women that buy clothes and never wear them, there’s so much waste! The average woman admits to owning six items of clothing they have never worn.

I’ve got so much in here that has still got its tags on because people have bought clothes and not actually ever worn them. 

What kind of clothing do you stock in here?

Top end high-street and upwards. Labels starting around Whistles, Karen Millen… up to Vivian Westwood, Mulberry, Dior. We get a lot of boutique labels like By Malene Birger, and we get a lot of Paul Smith. We get more of that than the really high-end stuff like Gucci and Chanel.  

But I’m really fussy about what I take. Some people get put off by the thought of second-hand clothing because they think it’s going to be like a grungy charity shop. But once people have been in they realise it’s actually a really nice boutique environment.

www.ragtradeboutique.co.uk

0117 376 3085

2 Upper Maudlin Street, BS2 8DJ