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The New Consumer
Popswap’s new digital lectures teach Generation Z how to consume fashion
The free courses, featuring fashion and environmental experts, influencers, as well as industry insiders, will reach 40 000 students — and counting.
By JOHAN MAGNUSSON
25 Feb 2021

Founder Lin Kowalska describes how the connecting thread for her as an entrepreneur always has been to make it easier for people to gather around what they are passionate about.

— And Popswap is a new way of expressing their interest in fashion, she tells.

The app, by some described as ”Tinder for secondhand items”, aims to make it easy and fun for people to update their wardrobes by swapping clothes with each other instead of shopping for new clothes.

— We want to help the you as a user to continue to live out your fashion interest, without a bad climate conscience and without spending a single penny, says Kowalska.

Together with Swedish Fashion Council, Popswap now launches Fashion Goals Academy, to spread climate facts, knowledge, and inspiration aimed at high school students in Sweden.

— The idea came during the time I myself lectured to high school students about sustainable fashion. I quickly noticed the need for more knowledge tailored to students. We want to make them understand why they need to change the way they consume fashion and how they can do it.

And how will you do it?

— Through a free series of digital lectures with accompanying exercises. The lecturers [featured in top, Ed’s note] are a mix of fashion and environmental experts, influencers taken from the students’ world, to make the course as highly motivating and tailored to the target group as possible.

Why is it such an important initiative?

— High school students, who belong to Generation Z, are the biggest consumers of our time — while they are the future. I think they are an incredibly cool new generation growing up. And one that cares a lot about sustainability. We see that resale is growing 25X faster than retail, and it is Gen Z that is the force behind the development, says Kowalska, adding,

— By targeting Generation Z, we can both change the way they and future generations consume fashion, but we can also inspire them to invest in the fashion industry as a profession to promote sustainable fashion.

How’s the reception from schools and students?

— It will be more students taking the course than I could ever imagine. At the moment, we have more than 2 000 school classes signed up, which would mean around 40 000 students will join the course. But we keep getting new signed up each day so we’ll see by the end of the term how many that participated, says Kowalska.