“A little bit of resistance & a bit of rebellion”

An interview with Kerry Harrison

It's 1st September and the beginning of Oxfam's annual Second-Hand September campaign. To celebrate and to raise awareness of the joys and benefits of shopping prevloved, I interviewed Kerry Harrison who stood as the Green Party candidate in the recent mayoral elections in Hull. Here, she chats to me about sustainable approaches to the way we dress, about pressures from society to conform, about gender equality and about her own evolving style.

Tell me a little about yourself please, Kerry.

I'm from Leeds originally and moved to Hessle in East Yorkshire in 2016. I live here with my two sons, who are 10 and 14 and three cats.

When I first moved here I was working freelance and started social media training with Digital Mums. I had to do a project and chose slow fashion.  I did a whole year of not buying new, and just buying from charity shops, Vinted and eBay. And that helped me, not just get retrained, but also to learn more about myself and find myself a little bit more after coming out of a long-term relationship. So I’ve carried it on. When you hear all about Shein and

Temu that makes me cringe a little bit inside, as I think I've bought a couple of things from them before I really was educated. It was maybe for dressing up, or something like that, but a lot of things I've actually managed to find in charity shops. I dressed up one Halloween  as Velma from Scooby-Doo. I've got the glasses, I've got the hair... it's perfect! And I went into a charity shop and straight away I found a red skirt that was absolutely perfect. There’s a certain way of doing a charity-shop shop and I've still got loads of the clothes I had from that year. Other clothes that I’ve bought, I tried to make a bit more meaningful, like buying from a small business, or a protest slogan outfit or a band t-shirt - something with a meaningful identity. 

Can you tell us a little about how you came to be involved with the Green Party? 

I joined in January 2024. I stood as a candidate in Hull North and Cottingham and when it came round to the General Election, the previous candidate could no longer stand and an email went out asking for interest. I thought, ‘Well you can't change anything if you're not involved in it,’ and right at the last minute I put my name down. I had to do an internal hustings on Zoom and I was voted to be the candidate. So that went from knowing pretty much zero, and it tells you that you just don't know what's going to happen with things. I can't say it was on my bingo sheet for 2024! 

When the mayoral election came round, I think I was the only person!  That was a lot more intense. The remit of the mayor is different to that of an MP.  But for me, it was always how to serve the people best, to have the best interests of the people because there is deprivation in certain parts of Hull that need addressing, and I always went with this intention of standing up for the people and putting people's needs first.

Talking about the fashion side of it, I thought it was a good idea to wear something that will link me to Green things, so I found a green t-shirt that was my eldest’s that fitted me, so I wore that. I found a green top in one of the charity shops, and I wore that on the TV debate. I didn't want to start buying loads of stuff, but I thought, I'll see what there is. If  you go into a charity shop with the intention of finding something, chances are it's actually there. We  did a hustings bringing the Muslim community in to have a voice and bringing them into the election campaign, so I wore the colours of the Palestine flag.  It helps you feel a little bit more included in that community. On the back of that, I was asked to do a speech at the trans rights protest. At first, I was like, ‘Oh, wow, that's really exciting!’ but I wondered how best I could approach this as an ally, because I'm not going to talk for people. But where I work, there are a few kids who identify as trans or non-binary, so I got their permission to say their words. One of them was there, and when I went up to do my speech, he shouted, ’That's my teacher!’ and was super happy about it. I didn't wear the colours of the trans flag. There’s  a band called the Iron Roses, one of the singers identifies as non-binary, but has always been male presenting in a different band that I've really loved that’s very political and shouty, very masculine. And this is a chance for them to have really identified who they are and run with it, so I wore a vest that has the Iron Roses and has the LGBTQ+ symbol trans flag colours. The jeans I wore were from a charity shop, so I still got it all in there.

How  would you describe your style?

At the moment, I'm going a lot for comfort, things that fit, because I know I've gained a bit of weight . When I first moved over here, I lost quite a bit of weight. I'm trying to work more on saying it's OK that the weight is creeping back on but I don't want to start buying loads of new stuff. You do just hang on to things just in case, but it takes up space. I've got maybe 10 bags of clothes to take to the charity shop.  So I tried things on to ask myself whether it fits, whether I knew I was going to wear it again, or whether it brought me joy. I tried to be as strict as I could, but I’ve still got a tonne of clothes, so I'm going to make more of an effort to wear what I've got.

What kind of styles bring you joy? 

Lots of different things but, it's tricky, because it depends on the mood of the day, doesn't it? Sometimes I feel like being quite girly, and sometimes I feel like being a bit more, I guess, masculine. It's that balance, isn't it? Like, the male-female within yourself. I bought a skirt recently from one of the charity shops, a long skirt with stretchy waistband. I am into stretchy waistbands at the moment! It’s creamy coloured with  flowers on - kind of ‘old lady cool’. I've made a little outfit of it with a crop top and chub rub shorts - because they're just a complete game-changer - and Doc Marten sandals, and that felt kind of hippy cool. I like the idea of invoking a bit of an atmosphere, a way of feeling through what you’re wearing.

I think it's useful to follow people on social media because I did when I did the Digital Mums training. My campaign was called The Right Side of Thrifty, which I thought was a brilliant name, and I had a lot of people I was following that were thrifting and buying second-hand. I found one just the other day who’s American and a teacher  and she was going through her wardrobe and at the end of the summer before she went back to school, she’d grown out of loads of stuff but was replacing it at Goodwill. So people can find fun things, interesting things, and you can get influence and inspiration from other people.

If you put an outfit on and think, ‘Maybe this is a bit too much or what will people think?’ that's always a good indication just to wear it. If you feel OK and you're just worried about what other people might think, then just wear it.

What message would you give to  the fashion industry? 

One of the biggest things is that you don't actually need to create anything else, because there's enough. There's so much waste. At the end of each season, fashion houses will throw away a load of clothes. It's mind-blowing how much waste there is. And I think people really do need to be educated on not buying all the little bits from really cheap  businesses. People say there’s no point in us doing things if places like China are not sorting theirs out. But we could stop a lot of that production by not buying it. We're the ones that buy into that cheap thing and it's just for a couple of months worth of clothes that somebody thinks everybody should be wearing. And it comes around again anyway because now it's all 90s, and there's stuff still around from the 90s. It’s that 80-20 thing, isn't it? You wear 20% of your wardrobe 80% of the time, so everybody's got clothes that they never wear and it's not just the fashion industry, it's people. Stop chasing that next thing, creating that next thing, because that consumption just isn't necessary. We just don't need to be getting everything new all the time. We're not in a race against anything. It's not as important as keeping the planet healthy. 

And support the charity shops that are local, like Jenny's Cat House. They take stuff that isn't immaculate, because they can get money for rags, so support local charities as much as possible.

And is there anything else you’d like to add, Kerry, before we finish

Use second-hand for fun because it's more affordable, but don't just buy for the sake of buying. Have fun with it and try not to be

pressured by everything that's around saying you need to be this, you need to be that, which is a lifelong battle for a lot of people. That's how capitalism works, isn't it? Not buying into it, I think, is a little bit of resistance and a bit of rebellion.

It’s been a privilege talking to Kerry. Please share this as widely and appropriately as you can.

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If you enjoyed reading this interview, you may be interested in my interview with Debi Saunders for International Women's Day 2025 about her style as a trans woman. Read here.

You may also be interested in my other blog posts which you can read here.