In Conversation with Bay Garnett, Queen of Thrift

I’m a little nervous to speak to Bay Garnett. She’s thrifting royalty. I grew up watching her Vogue Inside the Wardrobe YouTube videos, lapped up every photo shoot she did or article she wrote.

Relief washes over me when she’s on time for our conversation. Bay is exactly as I imagined. “Righto. C’mon. Let’s get into it”, she says as we begin our conversation. She’s in a hurry, swears, and is certainly opinionated.

It is, of course, her opinion, and her sense of style that allowed her to reach the dizzying heights of the fashion elite. And boy does she look the part. Bay has expensively blonde tousled hair and her wrists are cluttered with chunky bangles that I can hear clang together as she gesticulates on the phone. But beneath the glossy exterior is someone messier, unapologetically herself, who just likes to play dress up.

A former editor of Vogue, curator of Oxfam’s first runway show, and host of sustainable fashion podcast This Old Thing, Bay was arguably ahead of her time. London Fashion Week is just around the corner and she’ll be styling the Oxfam runway show for second year in a row.

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So, how do you go about selecting looks for one of the opening shows of Fashion Week? For Bay, it’s all about originality: “It’s more about being quieter but cooler. You may have an over-the-top 1960s crazy dress which will obviously look amazing. So I try and get excited by the different way that things can live.”

Vintage dressing is wonderfully wrapped up in nostalgia. The danger, however, is straying from resuscitating a classic piece from a certain era into costumery. Bay is acutely aware of the importance of wearability and currency with second-hand. “I’m not governed by what’s trending now, but I have to nod to it. It has to feel contemporary, otherwise it’s a dressing up box”, she says. Ultimately, it’s critical that people watch the show and want to wear what’s shown. Otherwise, how can we expect them to choose second-hand over something shiny and new?

I’m curious as to where her love of fashion came from. The daughter of Polly Devlin, an American and British Vogue veteran, Bay grew up around glossy magazines and believes it’s in her blood: “Some people are born highly intelligent or athletic, whereas I was born with a love of clothes. It’s kind of arbitrary to me. It’s just the way it is.” 

Thank goodness it was so instinctive for Bay, or perhaps she would never have had the gumption to champion thrifting in a predominantly luxury market. “Vogue hired me because of my love of second-hand fashion. My first ever photo-shoot comprised entirely of clothes I’d found in charity shops in New York”, she says.

The photoshoot in question is, of course, Kate Moss in the famous banana top. The top has become part of fashion lore and even inspired Phoebe Philo to create something similar for Celine last year.

Bay puffs out her cheeks when asked if this was her best thrift find: “There’s far too many to choose from. Aside from that, I’d have to say maybe my leopard print coat from the 70s.”

Reusing, re-wearing and recycling clothes is a climate imperative. But can this be reconciled with fashion’s insatiable appetite for novelty and innovation? Bay doesn’t see the issue: “There’s enough clothes in circulation now to dress the next six generations. There are infinite possibilities to make things look new. There’s so much creativity in restyling something to the point it looks like something totally different.”

Fashion week is built upon the changing of the seasons and the need to update one’s wardrobe accordingly. Bay believes this to be somewhat an archaic concept, harking back to the days of couturiers. As an advocate of slower consumption, she sees seasonal dressing as a thing of the past. 

“Just look at what we achieved with Oxfam. That used to be the least coveted ticket in the industry. Now people can’t wait to see what we do”, she beams. She’s animated when she talks about this line of her work: “It’s the thing I’m most proud of!”

Although Bay may have been ahead of the curve with the sustainable fashion movement, she’s certainly basking in glory now that the revolution has arrived. As the industry catches up with her vision, Bay stands not just as thrifting royalty, but as proof that sustainability and style can and must go hand in hand.