Why You Need to Slow Down Your Wardrobe

I was your typical fast fashion addict, a Primark loving fashionista wannabe buying bags of new clothes from cheap stores every month and throwing them away the next. I remember going to Primark or Forever 21 regularly in my first year of University and buying hundreds of pounds worth of clothes – can you imagine how much £100 would get you in Primark? Yep, that’s how much I was buying. Although my own style was forming and I didn’t really follow the trends of the day I still bought into the idea that I needed multiple new outfits every week. I couldn’t possibly wear the same thing to Uni again and again and there was no way I would want to wear the same dress out clubbing. I look back on my attitude towards fashion and I am completely disgusted by my throw away behaviour. But I knew no better. I lived in a world where clothes were cheap and disposable and everyone I knew was doing it. We were students, we had to shop in Primark and own multiple dresses, it was the way it was.

It wasn’t until I moved to Oxford and met my husband that I really started to change my attitude. He showed me how much better it was to invest in a few key pieces that were well made, classic and durable. Yes, they were more expensive but in the long run it worked out much more affordable than buying lots of cheap clothing regularly. It was soon after this change in my wardrobe that I began learning about the horrendous effect the western world is having on this planet. Our crazy consumerist culture was using up 30% of the worlds resources and one of the biggest pollutants was fashion.

Fashion is the third most polluting industry in the world underneath oil and food. Every aspect of the manufacturing process is effecting the earth and its people. Right from the chemical dyes used in the fabric polluting water, to the people working 15 hour shifts in the factories for little or no pay, to the huge amounts of plastic packing the clothes arrive on our shores in. Each step has some kind of effect and mainly on the developing world. The chemical dyes are causing serious skin conditions for people in towns and villages, garment workers are working 80 hour weeks and barely able to afford food and shelter for their families, female garment workers are being sexually assaulted regularly whilst at work. And this is all before we even get the clothes in this country. Once they arrive we buy them for ridiculously low prices, wear them once and then throw them in the bin adding to our fast-growing landfill problem and demand more with no respect for the hours of work and skill gone into each piece by some of the poorest people in our world. The earth cannot sustain the rate at which we consume clothes and we need to stop.

It is time to say no to fast fashion. Time to cut down our spending habits and start buying what we need rather than what we want. It is time we spoke out for those unable to speak out for themselves. We need to change our mind-set. To say no to the marketing ploys that encourage you to buy one more cute vest top, to say no to throw away fashion and to start investing in a better world. I love fashion, I always have done and I enjoy creating my unique vintage style but I refuse to do it at the cost of thousands of lives and our planet. Luckily, I am far from alone in this fight against fast fashion. Thousands of amazing women and men including big names like Livia Firth and Emma Watson are all committed to seeing an end to fast fashion and trying to make a change in the fashion industry. There are so many positive things we can do and change in our own lives which will make an impact. 

This is something I want to talk about more and more on this blog and I will be sharing my tips and tricks as I go through my own journey of becoming a conscientious consumer. If this interests you and you want to learn more about how fashion is effecting and our world and why we need to change then I would seriously recommend you read “To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World” by LucySiegle. It’s an amazing book which takes you through everything from the beginning of fast fashion to the effect it is having on the planet and how to change. I really do believe that if enough people demand change in the fashion industry it can happen and the time is now.