Beckhams donate clothes for typhoon appeal

By Carol Vorderman

8:08PM GMT 21 Nov 2013

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If there’s one thing fashionistas like me enjoy more than wearing a Victoria Beckham dress, it’s picking one up for a fraction of the shop price.


It might sound too good to be true, but today, bargain-hunters at a Red Cross shop in Chelsea can do just that. In preparation for moving house, Victoria and her husband David are emptying their wardrobes and giving away their designer collection, to raise money for survivors of the devastating typhoon in the Philippines.


I have always admired Victoria – and have a number of her fabulous dresses at home – but this makes me like her even more. She and David are trendsetters, and seeing them donating old clothes to charity will inspire others to rummage through their wardrobes. In fact, I did the same with my own cast-offs just a few months ago.


During a 30-year career in television, you can’t help but amass an awful lot of clothes. At the end of every year on Countdown, the team would say: “Here, have 100 dresses.” You’d have to have at least one new outfit per show, so I ended up with rooms and rooms full of clothes. I’m not an acquisitive person, but the job is such that you end up with a lot. I’m sure it’s the same – probably much worse – for the Beckhams.


And yet, when I’m out of London, I’m a proper scruffbag. The clothes I actually wear would fit into a canvas wardrobe from Argos. In fact, when I moved to Bristol with my children, Katie and Cameron, six years ago, we lived in a tiny flat and that was exactly what I had, with the rest in storage. Once I’d done that for a while, I started thinking, “I can live without all the other stuff”.


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Then before we moved into our current house, Duffy, my other half, said: “Right, you’re getting rid of it. We’re not moving it all again – it’s going!” I didn’t have much of a choice, but I didn’t mind. I come from a very poor family and I wore hand-me-downs until the age of nine.

So, back in June, I rallied my friend Louise – who’s a brilliant organiser – and my PA, Karen. I got all my clothes into one room and we went through them. There must have been 20 racks, and boxes on top of that. Most of it was designer, and one rack still had the labels on everything. There was McQueen, Victoria Beckham, Versace, Gucci, Prada and Jimmy Choos. They made me go through every item and asked: “Will you wear it again?” It took two days.

By the end, I’d agreed to let 16 racks of clothes go – but I didn’t give them all to one cause. I tweeted photographs of my shoes and said: “If you’re a size six, send an email and the first one gets them.” We sent out about 40 pairs, completely randomly.

My brother was born with a cleft lip and palate and I’m patron of the Cleft Lip and Palate Association (CLAPA), so I also gave him a couple of racks to sell off to raise money for charity. He set up the European Cleft Organisation and it’s a cause very close to my heart.

The rest went to friends and family. It was my mum’s 85th birthday party in August and I’d got the chucking-out bug by then. There were 80 guests and no one was allowed to leave the party without a black bin bag of stuff. I must have clothed half of Bristol and Portishead. When I see my friends now, they’re all in my old clothes – it’s lovely that they’re not sitting in a drawer collecting dust.

Of course, there are things I would never give away. I still have the beige suede trousers I wore on the first episode of Countdown in 1982 – the first pair seen on Channel 4 – and I couldn’t part with those. There are some Roland Mouret dresses, a black Prada mac and a pair of Nine West summer wedges that I wear everywhere. And I’ve got my “trying on” trousers, which I fitted into in 1999, when I’d just done a detox and was the thinnest I’d been since I was 20.

Today, I love clear-outs so much that I’m planning another one in January. My life has changed quite a bit over the last year – I’m not doing as much TV in London and I’m working on a project to fly round the world solo, which takes up four days a week. For that, I’m in trainers, loose trousers and a jumper most of the time: you can’t fly a plane in Louboutins. It’s an incentive to give even more things away. I’m really pleased the Beckhams are doing the same. To anyone who’s considering it, I’d say if you haven’t worn an item of clothing in two years, don’t bother keeping it. It can go to a better home, and raise money for a good cause.

Victoria’s got the right idea: clearing your wardrobe is like clearing your mind.

The shop was filmed this morning, bulging with Victoria"s shoes,boots and dresses and David's Suits. The guy . presumably from the Red Cross said doors open at 11am in Chelsea and nothing is priced under £100 , the shoes are outrageous and the dresses look to be size 8 so they obviously won't appeal to everyone. We shall see.

Looks as if it was a big success.

http://news.sky.com/story/1172556/beckhams-charity-clothes-being-sold-on-ebay

Nobody has yet revealed how much was raised from the Beckham's clothes and shoes , I suspect less than anticipated, Victoria is a very small size as are her shoes. Many went for David's clothes and caps.