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Agence France-Presse

Bursting with customers one afternoon the week before Christmas, a second-hand charity shop in London’s Marylebone High Street looked even busier than the upscale retailers surrounding it.
One man grabbed two puzzle sets and a giant soft toy as a present for friends, another picked out a notebook for his wife.
“Since the end of September, we’ve seen a huge uplift in people coming to our shops and shopping preloved,” says Ollie Mead, who oversees the shop displays for Oxfam charity stores around London.
At the chain of second-hand stores run by the British charity, shoppers can find used, or “preloved”, toys, books, bric-a-brac and clothes for a fraction of the price of new items.

Popular in Britain for personal shopping, charity stores and online second-hand retailers are seeing an unlikely surge in interest for Christmas gifts, a time of year often criticised for promoting consumerism and generating waste.
A report last month by second-hand retail platform Vinted and consultants RetailEconomics found UK customers were set to spend £2 billion (US$2.5 billion) on second-hand Christmas gifts this year, around 10 per cent of the £20 billion Christmas gift market.
In an Oxfam survey last year, 33 per cent were going to buy second-hand gifts for Christmas, up from 25 per cent in 2021.
“This shift is evident on Vinted,” Adam Jay, Vinted’s marketplace chief executive, says.
“We’ve observed an increase in UK members searching for ‘gift’ between October and December compared to the same period last year.”
According to Mead, who has gifted second-hand items for the last three Christmas seasons, sustainability concerns and cost-of-living pressures are “huge factors”.

Skimming the racks at the central London store, doctor Ed Burdett found a keychain and notebook for his wife.
“We’re saving up at the moment, and she likes to give things another life. So it’ll be the perfect thing for her,” Burdett, 50, says.
“It’s nice to spend less, and to know that it goes to a good place rather than to a high street shop.”
Wayne Hemingway, designer and co-founder of Charity Super.Mkt, a brand which aims to put charity shops in empty shopping centres and high street spaces, has himself given second-hand Christmas gifts for “many, many years”.
“When I first started doing it, it was classed as quirky and weird,” he says, adding it was now going more “mainstream”.
Similarly, when he first started selling second-hand clothes over 40 years ago, “at Christmas, your sales always nosedive(d) because everybody wanted new”.
Now, however, “we are seeing an increase at Christmas sales just like a new shop would”, Hemingway says.

All his stores have seen a rise in sales 20 per cent higher than expected in the weeks before Christmas.
“Things are changing for the better … it’s gone from second-hand not being what you do at Christmas, to part of what you do.”
Young people are driving the trend by making more conscious fashion choices, and with a commitment to a “circular economy” and to “the idea of giving back [in] a society that is being more generous and fair”, he says.
At the store till, 56-year-old Jennifer Odibo is unconvinced.
Buying herself a striking orange jacket, she says she “loves vintage”. But for most people, she confessed she would not get a used gift.
“Christmas is special, it needs to be something they would cherish, something new,” says Odibo.
“For Christmas, I’ll go and buy something nice, either at Selfridges or Fenwick,” she added, listing two iconic British department stores.

Hemingway concedes some shoppers “feel that people expect something new” at Christmas.
“We’re on a journey. The world is on a journey, but it’s got a long way to go,” he adds.
According to Tetyana Solovey, a sociology researcher at the University of Manchester in England, “for some people, it could be a bit weird to celebrate it [Christmas] with reusing”.
“But it could be a shift in consciousness if we might be able to celebrate the new year by giving a second life to something,” Solovey says.
“That could be a very sustainable approach to Christmas, which I think is quite wonderful.”


Are second-hand Christmas presents the new trend? UK charity shops have a pre-holiday boom

How A-listers are rocking chaotic patchwork fashion: channel A$AP Rocky or Katie Holmes with the help of Dolce & Gabbana and Ralph Lauren

Meet Cody Bellinger’s wife Chase Bellinger – who used to date the Yankees’ Giancarlo Stanton: the Bahamian Victoria’s Secret model has also worked with Khloé Kardashian’s Good American and Maybelline

Who is Brandi Glanville’s 21-year-old model son, Mason Cibrian? The RHOBH star’s child with ex-husband Eddie Cibrian is studying business and signed to the same agency as Paris Hilton

Fashion

A customer browses second-hand items inside an Oxfam charity shop in London. This Christmas, more people than ever are buying “preloved” gifts from charity shops and online second-hand retailers. Photo: AFP

An Oxfam charity shop in London. Photo: AFP

A display of books inside an Oxfam charity shop. Photo: AFP

Wayne Hemingway is a designer and co-founder of Charity Super.Mkt. Photo: AFP

A customer browses clothes inside Charity Super.Mkt in London. Photo: AFP

Hong Kong 2025 travel trends include longevity retreats, 3 generations on holiday together

Multigeneration holidays will be a trend among Hong Kong families in 2025, travel website Booking.com says. Photo: Shutterstock 

Regina Chan (centre) of Booking.com presents the findings of its survey of travellers’ intentions in 2025 in Hong Kong. More than 1,000 people from the city took part. Photo: Handout

The brilliant Milky Way Galaxy and a starry night sky arch over the historic chapel of Mont Saint-Joseph in the Parc National du Mont-Mégantic, Québec, Canada. Dark-sky tourism interests Hong Kong travellers more than most. Photo: Shutterstock

How to help a loved one with dementia enjoy the holiday season

Exchanging gifts with a loved one with dementia can be challenging whether they are the giver or the recipient. Photo: Shutterstock


Christmas can be a bewildering time for people with dementia, but there are lots of things you can do, or avoid, to make it a happy occasion for them. Photo: Shutterstock

The writer made playing cards with family photographs on, so a game of patience became one of memory for her mother. Photo: Anthea Rowan

Try to involve the person with dementia in short trips to see Christmas lights or decorations in shopping centres, says Emily Ka-Hei Lui, a dementia specialist Admiral Nurse at Dementia UK. Photo: Dementia UK

Exchanging gifts with a loved one with dementia can be challenging whether they are the giver or the recipient. Photo: Shutterstock 

To get your loved one involved could be as simple as asking them to hang a decoration on a tree. Photo: Shutterstock

Having lots of people about during the festive season can be frightening for people with dementia, so designate a quiet place for them. Photo: Shutterstock 

5 Hong Kong food and drink Christmas gift ideas,  from whisky glasses to cakes and cookies

Hong Kong bakery Maya’s Jolly Holiday Box is one of our favourite food and drink-related Christmas present ideas this year. Photo: Maya

This Christmas, bottles of The Glenlivet whisky aged 18 years or more come with a set of limited-edition glasses handcrafted in Japan and illustrated by Hong Kong artist Tse Sai Pei. Photo: The Glenlivet

Saicho’s mini collection pack includes three 200ml bottles of their non-alcoholic sparkling tea – which make for great stocking fillers when gifted separately. Photo: Saicho

Saicho’s Sixty Stone Mountain sparkling tea is a great alcohol-free gift idea. Photo: Saicho

Snowsand’s Chocolate Sandwich – langue de chat biscuits filled with a chocolate filling – is one of two signature treats the Japanese brand is selling in Hong Kong this winter. Photo: Snowsand

Maya’s vegan-friendly Jolly Holiday Boxes feature gingerbread men, stollen, a chocolate croissant, an apple crumble muffin and more. Photo: Maya

Fortnum & Mason’s customisable Christmas hampers are a more extravagant gift option. Photo: Fortnum & Mason

Tea WG’s Red Christmas Tea. Photo: Tea WG

Baking Maniac’s Festive Dog Treats box includes freeze-dried wagyu, chicken bites and even a doggy doughnut. Photo: Baking Maniac

Why is everyone buying New Balance sneakers? The ‘dad shoe’ is right on trend, has had high-profile collaborations and was worn at the Fifa World Cup

Young sneakerheads have been drawn of late to New Balance sneakers, such as its 580 model (above), belying its image as a “dad shoe” brand. 

A New Balance 550 shoe. Sneaker resale site StockX reported that New Balance was among the top five bestselling brands on Black Friday last year.

New Balance 580 sneakers. The history of New Balance dates back to 1906.

New Balance 550 sneakers. The 550 was created for basketball players.

Apple founder Steve Jobs at an event in San Francisco in 2010. Jobs was often spotted wearing New Balance sneakers. Photo: Getty Images

A pair of New Balance 550s. Subcultures such as gorpcore and normcore have helped New Balance become trendy.

New Balance’s Aimé Leon Dore x 550 sneakers.

The New Balance 1906R shoe.

A collaboration with Italian menswear brand Stone Island has seen New Balance release a football boot worn at the Qatar 2022 World Cup.

A pair of New Balance 808 sneakers.

New Balance 650 kicks. There has been a more than 800 per cent year-on-year increase in searches for the silhouette.

Lifestyle

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World

Europe

This Christmas, a time of year often criticised for promoting consumerism, more Britons than ever before are buying ‘preloved’ gifts


This Christmas, a time of year often criticised for promoting consumerism, more Britons than ever before are buying ‘preloved’ gifts.
