Oxfam Castle Street goes back to the future

Not to be outdone, the leading charity retailer has gone for an extensive remodelling of its shop in Castle Street, Belfast, and recently hosted a special relaunch party for its vintage department.

Oxfam Castle Street's Vintage department relaunch party on Wednesday 7 May included a vintage fashion competition, with an award for the best vintage outfit worn on the night, with numerous competing guests looking resplendent. Local eukelele-strumming musician and poet Geoff Gatt provided the in-store entertainment and acted as competition judge, while light refreshments of Fair Trade tea and coffee were also served to continue the theme of an old-style tea party.

Remake, remodel

As a counterpoint to this vintage theme, Castle Street is heading into the future as the first Oxfam Ireland shop to set up its own dedicated myspace site – www.myspace.com/oxfamcastlest – which includes a weekly blog, with uploaded pictures of the shop and a new folder of photos of amazing vintage items, as well as CDs, vinyl and books that the shop has received that week, along with any interesting and quirky shop stories and news.

One of the mannequins, rechristened Davina, has been chosen to be the “face and spokesmann” (sic) of the shop. The shop’s retro wallpaper continues the funky vintage theme and has also been selected as the myspace page background, but the main picture will change to feature Davina in a different fabulous outfit each week.

As well as the revamped vintage department, the Castle Street shop also stocks all your usual favourites, such as quality donated fashion and accessories, bric-a brac, books and music.