2 April 2026
And just like that… Swap in the City opens in Greenwood Plaza
Nina Gbor, founder of the new high-end clothes swap social enterprise, Swap in the City, is proving that glamour and sustainability can be a perfect combination. We couldn’t help but wonder, can fashion really be sustainable and stylish? The North Sydney Sun sat down with Gbor to find out more.
Gbor’s dedication to secondhand style has been a life-long passion. “Since I was little, my Mum used to buy half of our things from thrift stores, like the Goodwill store and the Salvation Army,” she recounts. Inspired by the classical movies of the 40s and 50s, Gbor started thrifting for vintage items herself at age 15.
She embraced vintage clothing long before it was in vogue: “I loved the idea of creating my own vibe. Look, I hated fashion trends,” Gbor explains. “I hated the idea that I’d go to school and everyone’s wearing the same thing and I’d get made fun of if I wasn’t dressed like it. I was like, why do I have to look like everyone else?”.
Gbor moved to Bristol, UK for her postgraduate studies, then began working in software research. Throughout this time she never lost her love for thrifting, often spending her lunch breaks op-shopping.
“I started to wear really elegant, glamorous stuff and post it on socials… and it actually got people like, oh, you can buy stuff like that secondhand?” she said.
In Bristol, and continuing after a move to Canberra, she also began hosting events called Clothes Swap and Style, which became well-attended and have now run for over 15 years.
On top of this, Gbor founded Eco Styles, an NGO that engages with media, councils, organisations, schools, community groups, and individuals to develop strategies for systems change towards a holistic, circular, and sustainable fashion future.
Building on the success of the swaps and now living in Sydney, Gbor started throwing a party called ‘Swap in the City Soirée’ at her Eco Styles office. Building on the success of these events, the concept was turned into a full-time, shop-front social enterprise.
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Now open in North Sydney’s Greenwood Plaza, Swap in the City is a high-end, volunteer-driven clothes swap that Gbor self-funded entirely. It uses pre-loved clothes as a form of currency.
“Basically, you use the clothes that you have, which you no longer need, that are in good condition and good quality, as currency to get other pre-loved clothes,” Gbor explains.
How it works:
Bring in Items: Visitors are recommended to bring three to five items.
Quality Check: Items are put through a quick quality check. The swap is strict about what it accepts: ‘no fast fashion’. Gbor suggests people use Google or AI to check if a brand is considered fast fashion before bringing it in.
Receive Tokens: Based on the number of accepted items, customers receive tokens.
Swap: “If you have three tokens, you can pick three items. If you have five tokens, you can pick five items,” she says.
Brands that were found on the racks at the time of this interview included Review, Witchery, Trainer, Josh Goots, DKNY, Calvin Klein, Scanlon Theodore, and Sass and Bide.
With the store open in North Sydney, Gbor continues her mission to educate the public on sustainable fashion and to promote the reuse economy, with style, of course.