Last month, LookToTheStars reported about a celebrity pop-up shop that aimed to raise charity cash for Oxfam at London’s Selfridges store. We can now reveal the shop raised over £48,000 in one week.
A team of A-list stars, led by Annie Lennox and Whistles CEO Jane Shepherdson, helped to create, stock and staff The Oxfam Curiosity Shop – Britain’s biggest charity pop-up shop. Open from Friday 14 to Thursday 20 May in Selfridges’ Ultralounge, the pop-up shop sold celebrity-donated items from icons including Annie Lennox, Beyoncé Knowles, Elle Macpherson, Shirley Bassey, Vivienne Westwood and Stella McCartney plus thousands of handpicked items from Oxfam shops and boutiques across the country.
Selling clothing, music, books, art and homewares, the Selfridges-based shop made more profit in one week than the £42,000 profit that the average Oxfam shop makes in a year – with over 10,000 people flooding through the doors. If it had traded for a year The Oxfam Curiosity Shop could have made an incredible £2.5 million, the equivalent of 60 Oxfam shops’ profits.
The shop was accompanied by a special online sale of celebrity items for worldwide fans, which raised a further £14,000 and a private auction for celebrity friends and family, which achieved bids totaling £140,000. Altogether the week of events as part of the Oxfam Curiosity Shop raised over £200,000 for Oxfam’s women’s projects around the world. The amount raised would be enough to fund a whole girls’ education program in West Africa: training 150 teachers, constructing and refurbishing schools, establishing girls’ clubs to mentor and support young women and training many more people to help offer the poorest girls the chance of an education.
Sarah Farquhar, Oxfam’s head of retail, said: "Our partnership with Selfridges signals an exciting step for Oxfam. Our shops have long been a favorite haunt for vintage shoppers, and many designers admit they have taken inspiration from second-hand pieces found on our rails. However working with such a high-profile retail name as Selfridges has given us access to a whole new audience and proved to many people that the quality and breadth of stock they can find in Oxfam is unrivaled.
"I recently visited Oxfam’s education program in Niger and Burkina Faso. It was so uplifting to hear from the mothers of pupils what a difference an education and a school meal made to both the lives of their children and the community as a whole. Particularly after the failed harvest in the Sahel and the resulting food shortages, I am delighted we have raised such a significant amount of money to support these programs."
Funds raised by the shop will be supporting Oxfam’s women’s projects across the world including Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Democratic Republic of Congo, West Africa and South Africa. These projects protect, support and empower vulnerable women: campaigning against violence, empowering them to fight HIV and AIDS and offering the poorest girls the chance of education.
Annie Lennox said: “I’m thrilled that The Oxfam Curiosity Shop has been so successful. It’s great to know that so many people got involved and came along to the shop or bid online to buy something unique. Most importantly, I’m delighted that we’ve raised so much money for Oxfam’s work with vulnerable women around the world. Seventy per cent of the 1.3 billion people who live in extreme poverty are women and girls; by empowering women we can help them to lift themselves, their families and their communities out of poverty.”
For more information, visit www.oxfam.org.uk/curiosityshop.
