For me fashion has always been about more than just what I’m wearing. Shopping and looking at clothes is an emotional experience that can make me giddy with excitement. I’m certainly no size zero fashionista swanning round town, but I love buying new clothes, the touch and feel of new textures and shapes. Seeing new colour combinations and fresh styles, just makes me feel good!
I’ll follow people down the street to find out where their coat was from, I’ll spend lost hours hunting down a pair of shoes I’ve created a picture of in my head but can’t find in real life.
I have to admit that when it comes to shopping, I might be a tiny bit of an addict. It’s thrill of the purchase, even the sound of a parcel coming to the door makes me happy. But I do realise that often as soon as I’ve bought the item of clothing I’ve been dreaming about, it’s lost it’s hold on me and I’ve forgotten about it in a few days.
The items that I keep and most love and cherish are usually wardrobe staples or items I spend a long time choosing.
But something’s happened to me recently, I’ve starting looking around my house and wondering how I have so much STUFF. I have 2 young children so a house filled with plastic is pretty standard, but my wardrobe is bursting and much as my husband would like me to bin it all, that’s never gonna happen!
So this year I am trying to shop more consciously. For me this means stopping to think about what I’m buying, thinking about whether I need that item and why I am buying it. I’ve already started being less wasteful with food and now I’m moving onto my wardrobe.
The more I started looking into sustainable fashion and buying more conscientiously the more I realised the huge impact and effect the clothing industry has on the environment and on the lives of the millions of people working within it.
An estimated £140 million worth of clothes goes to landfill in the UK each year. That’s a lot of clothes! Last week marked the 4 years anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster, in which an 8 story building in Bangladesh housing several clothing factories collapsed killing approximately 1130 people. People busy just trying to earn a living ,making the fast fashion clothes I usually love to buy. All of this has made me more determined to change the way I dress and shop. I’m on a mission to buy less and wear more of the clothes I already have. I want to buy and keep a few simple items that will last and last and stop the thrill of cheap new clothes.
I’ll be looking at ways of making my clothes last longer and researching ethical brands to find out who makes their clothes. I want to think about each piece I buy, how long it will last and feel happy knowing the workers making my clothes were well looked after and treated fairly.
So here I am on, on a mission to buy more thoughtfully and find ways of buying more sustainably. My blog will feature ideas and tips for your wardrobe, new designers and places to shop ethically, and ways to move away from fast fashion. Follow my journey to a more ethical wardrobe.
See you soon.
The Ethical Wardrobe 