What If Clothing Were Free? The Idea Behind My TEDxBillings Talk

There’s a question I couldn’t stop thinking about: what if clothing were free?

Not cheaper. Not on sale. Free.

In December 2024 I took that question to the TEDxBillings stage in a talk called "The Future of Fashion: What If Clothing Were Free?" I’ve been speaking for more than a decade, but this one felt different, because it wasn’t a theory anymore. By then I was already living the answer every day inside Switch Society.

Here’s the idea behind the talk, and where it has gone since.

Watch the TEDxBillings talk on YouTube.

The life of one dress

I opened the talk with the life of a single pink dress. It was sewn in a factory in Bangladesh, sold for $100 in a New York boutique, worn once, and donated. Then it went unsold, and it ended up in a landfill.

That story isn’t unusual. Most of us have a closet full of pieces that were "in" for a season, or that we bought for a version of ourselves we were still figuring out. Fashion carries costs we don’t see on the price tag: a financial cost, an emotional cost and an environmental cost.

So I asked a different question about that dress. What if it could have been passed around, from woman to woman, without money ever changing hands?

As I said in the talk, "It’s time we rethink our relationship with fashion."

Can’t we just make it free?

The question that built my business was a simple one: can’t we just somehow make it free?

I’d seen clothing swap events. But one-off swaps fall short. They only last a few hours. They don’t always include every size, style or age. The quality is uneven, and sometimes the tables are full of stained or broken pieces.

I wanted something that lasted. A shared wardrobe that’s always there, where the clothes keep moving and every woman can walk in and find something.

That’s Switch Society. Members bring in what they no longer wear, earn points, and shop everyone’s closet. Nothing is bought, and nothing is sold. Clothing just moves to the next woman who’ll love it. (If you want to know what happens when you let a piece go, I wrote about that in The Stewardship of Letting Go.)

And nothing is wasted. Pieces that can’t go back on the racks are taken apart and upcycled. In the talk I put it this way: "Nothing is wasted. The culture is built on the idea that everything and everyone has value."

What the Free Fashion Revolution looks like now

I call this movement the Free Fashion Revolution. It’s the belief that clothing should circulate freely through community wardrobes instead of being constantly bought and thrown away.

It’s not just an idea on a stage anymore. From our flagship in Billings, Montana, we’ve grown to 769 paid members. Together we’ve circulated over 319,000 items, and we process over 10,000 items every month.

Those numbers matter to me less as numbers and more as proof. They show that women will choose access over ownership when it’s easy, welcoming and fun. That’s the heart of what I wrote about in Access Over Ownership: The Future of Fashion. Access over ownership in fashion isn’t a sacrifice. It’s freedom. You get to try the bold color, the new silhouette, the piece you’d never risk buying, with no guilt and no risk.

My background is in psychology (I have a master’s degree in it), and that’s the part of this I find most beautiful. When the money and the pressure come out of getting dressed, women start to play again. They try things. They find out who they’re becoming instead of dressing for who they used to be.

It’s also about more than what’s on the hanger. "This is where fashion becomes not about consumption, but about community and connection." Our community swap events are open to people who aren’t members, including help with back to school and workwear.

Why I believe it can travel

At the end of the talk I said I believe this model can work in any community on the planet. I still believe that. It’s why we’re franchising Switch Society, so other women can bring a membership-based circular wardrobe to their own cities.

"The future of fashion is not only about what we wear, but how we think about clothing." Change can start small. One swap, one dress at a time.

Join the Free Fashion Revolution

If this idea speaks to you, there are a few ways in:

• Watch the talk and share it with a friend who has a closet full of "someday" clothes.
• Find a Switch near you on our locations page, or learn how membership works.
• Bring this conversation to your event. I speak about the future of fashion, access over ownership and community. See my talks on the speaking page.

So I’ll leave you with the question that started it all. What if clothing were free? What would you try first?