Mary Queen of Charity Shops

Mary Portas is the scary-but-cool shopping guru responsible for breathing life into failing boutiques across the land for her TV show, Mary Queen of Shops, and now she's turned her steely gaze on the charity sector.

While making her latest series, Mary Queen of Charity Shops, she discovered that charity shops suffer from the poor quality of the items people donate (some of her disgusting discoveries included unwashed knickers and dirty nappies - eew!) Rather than benefitting from the recession, charity shops are seen as places where unwanted clothes go to die.

Determined to change that, Mary decided it was time for a new kind of charity shop - one that stocks the kind of clothes you'd love to buy. She's managed to bag a prime spot in the luxurious Village at Westfield, London to launch her very own Living and Giving charity shop which will be open from the 4th to the 27th of June.

Celebs, designers and fashionistas have donated items (Peaches Geldof has given a gorgeous Mulberry dress that she wore in Cannes, while Prada, Luella and Mulberry have also donated pieces) and will be manning the tills in the shop so you could bag a designer item at a bargain price - and all in the name of charity! All the money raised will go to three key national charities - Save the Children, Barnardo's and Mind. If you snap up a £5 T-shirt, that will fund a mosquito net for a family to sleep under, while a £30 handbag will pay for a life-saving water filter.

The aim of the show - and the shop - is to encourage us to give better quality items to charity, so even if you don't make it down to Westfield to browse the celeb's donations, why not bag up some of your old favourites and donate them to your local charity shop?

If you want to donate your unwanted clothes to Mary's shop, send them, clearly marked for "MARY'S LIVING AND GIVING SHOP", to Save the Children collection depot in Derby. 4A Cotton Brook Road, Sir Francis Ley Industrial Park South, Derby DE23 8YH.

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