Caroline Jones: How the 'Knickers Model's Own' charity shop challenge helped ease the grief of bereavement

Postcript: Following the death of her mother, Ms Jones wore a different charity shop-sourced outfit every day for a year

‘Charity shop challenge helped ease my grief’

Sponsored swims, marathons, cake sales – those are some of the more conventional activities fundraisers will undertake in order to persuade their friends and family to part with their hard-earned cash in the name of charity. Caroline Jones tried a different approach. Following the death of her mother, Mary, from breast cancer, she resolved to wear a different outfit every day for an entire year, from 1 January 2015, with all the garments sourced exclusively from charity shops. The proceeds would go to Cancer Research UK, where her mother had volunteered. Little did she know when she embarked on her fundraising effort that she would raise over £56,000.

“My target at the beginning was £1,000 but I thought even that was ambitious,” said Ms Jones, who lives in Harpenden, Hertfordshire.

Just seven days in, though, her appeal had gone viral, attracting attention from dozens of local and national publications, and her Facebook page, Knickers Models Own, which documented her outfits, went on to amass over 10,000 followers. She subsequently received the prestigious JustGiving Creative Fundraiser of the Year Award and a Points of Light Award from David Cameron.

Ms Jones’s experiment ended over two months ago but she continues to wear pre-loved clothes. “I haven’t bought anything new,” she said. “The fashion industry is all about encouraging you to keep spending on new trends. I’m old enough to know how the seasons work now.”

A coffee table book, which chronicles her year of style, is due to be published this spring – and the tome is anything but homespun. The renowned fashion photographer Rankin shot Ms Jones for the cover, and the British fashion designer Henry Holland wrote the foreword.

“Who’d have thought I’d be photographed by Rankin? It’s incredible,” Ms Jones said.

The fundraiser, who originally embarked on her campaign as a way of coping with her grief, said she believes her mother would have been proud of all she’s achieved.

“I was so close to my mum; we were absolutely inseparable. She always let me experiment with fashion and we bonded going to the shops together. I just wanted to bring some lightness to the grief I was experiencing, put a smile on my face and remember my mum. She would have been telling everyone about this.”