A Swedish yard-sale tradition has been rebuilt as an app to clear out wardrobes via Tupperware party-style gatherings.

Jessica Salter Published September 29 2026 Jump to comments section Print this page Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Fashion my FT Digest -- delivered directly to your inbox. It’s a late summer afternoon on the east London rooftop terrace of two friends. Peggy Gou plays on the sound system, drinks chill in an ice bucket, and clothes are laid out for sale. A woman in a mini dress and cowboy boots has just bought a £5 purple bikini for a festival next week, while Mitch Bradley, 34, buys a £5 vintage T-shirt. “I just like the vibe,” he says. “I like finding treasures.”

They’re at a “Loppa” party, a new platform designed to bring the buying and selling of second-hand clothes off online platforms such as Vinted and back into the real world. Oscar Gierup and Bianca Jemsten, who launched the Loppa platform in May © Adama Jalloh It’s the brainchild of Oscar Gierup, who remembers loppmarknad — yard sales — in his native Sweden. “It’s so common to drive around Sweden and see signs for loppa,” he says. “In Haverdal, where my family spends the summer, the whole town does it at once, and these days there’s an interactive map.”

Last year Gierup, 32, a creative director who works in advertising, was moving flats in London and needed to sell his belongings. “I thought I should be able to host a loppa with a bigger reach,” he says. Childhood friend Bianca Jemsten, 32, a photographer, and fellow Swede Vincent Jarnung, 28, a software developer, agreed and they launched the platform in May. Loppa isn’t reinventing the wheel. Along with the Swedish loppmarknad, France has its vide-greniers (“empty attics”) and brocantes, while America has stoop sales (a term catching on in London). Jumble trails, where residents in a local area set out stalls in front of their homes, are popping up all over the UK — I’ve done one myself for the past two years. Shopping at a Loppa clothes sale © Adama Jalloh Vintage finds at a Loppa clothes sale © Adama Jalloh There are, of course, also car boot sales and vintage flea markets — but these require the added level of organisation of getting to an external venue to set up (and a car boot), often at an ungodly hour on a weekend morning. Instead, Loppa promises to make it easy for the seller — it could be literally from their bedroom — and then helps with organisation and promotion: sellers pay £12 to register a Loppa party (with the option to add on cotton tote bags for shoppers), then Loppa handles guest registration and publicises the event to its community. Tiana Chan, 31, host of the Loppa party I attended, went to one of the first events in Hackney, east London. The sunglasses she’s wearing today were bought at the May party alongside the two teal cushions on her bed, while her flatmate Ishaan Parikh, 29, picked up some shirts. “We were really inspired,” she says. “I love circular fashion, but selling online can be a pain. We thought we’d host a party, invite friends and treat making sales as a bonus.”

Clothes and homewares on sale, with prices starting at £2, at a Loppa party hosted by Tiana Chan, Ishaan Parikh and friends © Adama Jalloh Ishaan at the party. About 40 shoppers drifted up to the rooftop over the course of the five-hour event © Adama Jalloh I signed up weeks earlier after seeing an ad on Loppa’s Instagram. Approved by Chan via the app, I was sent the address and followed signs to the fifth floor. Here, Chan, Parikh and four friends are selling clothes and homewares from £2, including a vintage Laura Ashley suede waistcoat (£20) and a 1970s fluffy collared coat (£30). Over the course of the five-hour party — one of the longer ones, according to Gierup — around 40 shoppers drift up to the rooftop. For buyers, free drinks in hand, it’s a chance to shop second-hand in person rather than from badly taken photos on tiny screens. “My wife has bou...