Sustainable fashion: my unpopular opinions

Sustainable fashion is a hot topic right now. There are always new trends in circulation. But how viable are some of these ideas?

The 2020s have arrived and hit us in the face with the realisation that, as a planet, we might not in fact know how to handle a crisis. Climate change is going to bring new difficulties over the next few decades and each of us can play a part in helping to prevent this. To meet the current demand for consumption, textile production creates more than 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions each year. There is lots of conflicting advice out there for how to reduce how much you buy, and I therefore find myself confused and breaking promises I make to myself. Here, I will outline some sustainable fashion tips which often do not work for the average person, plus some alternatives that I think are more achievable in the long-term.

Capsule wardrobes

Capsule wardrobes are a neat idea; you already have everything you need in a few pieces which can be worn in dozens of different ways. Therefore, why would you need to go shopping anymore? However, a tiny wardrobe doesn't always work, especially for those of us who are more creative and like to experiment with our outfits. Restricting your clothing “diet” like this if you’re a natural born shopper could lead to frustrated shopping binges. The underlying premise of the capsule wardrobe is great: stick to a few styles, have a range of pieces that can traverse occasions, and limit your colours from 3-5 from the same colour palette. You don’t need to limit yourself to 15 pieces of clothing that you are going to wear for the rest of your life.

Quitting Cold Turkey

Multiple times a year I say to myself “that’s it, no more shopping”. This is about as effective as a fleeting new year's resolution; within a month, I have bought something at TK Maxx. Having broken my goal, I abandon it. Like with going teetotal, or quitting smoking, it CAN work for some people to go to extremes immediately and just stop, but for most people this is unrealistic.

Buying Everything on Depop

I love to shop in person; half of the fun for me is going to the changing room with my friends and hyping each other up, or shouting across the store when you find something and comparing. Switching from this lively experience to Depop’s impersonal online interface is not just a change of platform but an entirely different way of shopping that was too jarring. However, if you do most of your shopping on PLT or Asos, I think making this change could be really beneficial. If you like shopping in person, try switching to charity shops instead.

Buying the same “basics” as everyone else

The simplicity of 15 second Tiktoks demonstrating their ‘fall basics’ is so tempting. However, there are loads of factors which make a piece of clothing ‘basic’ beyond it being in a neutral colour or a simple silhouette. For example, I have a red handbag and pair of red high heels which I wear together on almost every night out, which makes them basics for me. It is an amazing idea to have touchstones in your wardrobe, but they should be personal and reflect your essence. I like my basics to have a touch of something special, like my denim jacket which has a peplum and doesn't have a collar - it is unconventional but more suited to the outfits I like to wear.

Throwing out clothes because “I never wear it”

I often see many people putting perfectly wearable clothes on Depop when they could be reimagined within their wardrobes. There is a lot of advice out there to throw away clothes you haven't worn in the past year, as a practice to learn what you really wear. However, I have done this before because I gained a little weight, or I felt it wasn't me anymore, and deeply regretted it because the right event for it came up a week later. Trends come and go, and you shouldn’t abandon an item of clothing just because it was trendy last year and looks a little strange now. I always keep my clothes and they come in handy in three years for something! I think being sentimental about your clothes is a good practice. If nothing else, they often work for a halloween costume. No matter how weird the item is or how much I think I’ve outgrown it, if it fits and isn’t worn out I keep it.

Never buying the same thing twice

You might think that buying multiple pieces in the same style would be wasteful - if you already have something in your wardrobe that serves that purpose, why buy something else that is the same? This is a good question that I use when shopping, but there are nuances. If you find an item of clothing which you can instantly see is going to make the clothes in your wardrobe more versatile, or is really similar to something you wear all the time, it might be worth buying two of them. It is a bit of a gamble to do this with a new piece of clothing, because it might not be what you imagined in the store; however, if you are certain about it you should buy multiple because this is better than buying a bad alternative several months later.

Never buying trends

I almost completely agree with this; however, you can take advantage of trends to pick up things you have wanted for a long time. There was a brief period in 2020 where tulle skirts were everywhere and I jumped at this because I have always wanted a Carrie Bradshaw skirt; I shop in autumn for most of my clothes because tan is a dominant colour in my wardrobe; and I wait out the winter to buy boots in the January sales. When you have worked on your style in depth, you can identify the gaps you have in your set of clothes and use trends to fill them.

Thrift-flipping timeless clothes to recreate micro trends

The conversation about girls on TikTok taking plus sized items they find in charity shops and just making them work for skinny girls is not a new one. This perpetuates the problem that sustainable fashion is largely only available to a certain type of person. A sister-issue that I see is people taking dresses that are not ‘on trend’ and transforming them into micro trends under the guise of making them ‘modern’. For example, in 2020 the twin set was incredibly popular and a lot of people took perfectly nice dresses and turned them into a set of a top and a skirt, which is more likely to age and be unwearable as your body grows and trends move on. However, I think the creativity of this is to be encouraged, and to find things that no one is going to buy and transforming them into something incredible is an important skill. It is also a much better option than buying the trend in store. We absolutely need to learn the sewing skills that our grandparents had in order to improve items of clothing.

Buying from sustainable brands

Investing in a dress from House of Sunny or even Lucy & Yak seems like a really good idea at the time. However, often these brands have a very unique style which you can get bored of quickly. Buying micro trends from sustainable brands is still an issue, as even sustainable brands have to use some level of cotton/polyester and consume a lot of water. The fact of the matter is the process of making clothes is always going to leave a mark, and while buying from these brands is better, if you are buying a piece of clothing which you are not going to wear at least 15 times, it is probably not worth buying.

I do and have done all of these things. I still buy from Zara regularly, I still am attracted to buying one-off dresses for events, I still make mistakes and buy clothes that don’t quite fit right because they are so cute. You have to be kind to yourself because it is a slow and difficult process to start shopping sustainably in a world that does not make that easy. Just thinking about the decisions you make when you buy means that you are starting to do your bit.