I would say that most of what I used to wear is from either H&M or Zara. Their stuff is firstly pretty cheap, decently constructed and always on trend. I would also say that my wardrobe was filled with things I never wore. Some of them even still had the price tags attached.
Right about the time I was getting into the zero waste lifestyle I watched his Netflix Documentary on Minimalism and decided to start rooting things out from my wardrobe. I started out strong with a nice big pile on my bed when it came to give it away some items managed to find their way back into my closet.
Two very close friends also run an amazing initiative called Back Alley and I donate a bag of clothes every time they have a sale. But… I end up coming home with a bag of clothes as well! So that’s a total minimalism fail. But, a win for shopping sustainably. My money ends up going to a good cause plus my purchase prevents clothes from entering the waste stream.
It turns out I like stuff, a lot more than I initially thought. However this is slowly changing, I’m starting to value experiences over things. What’s working for me though is not buy any “new” crap. This year I’m making it my goal to buy clothes etc. exclusively from second hand stores.
And I’ve been pretty good too. Nothing new since November of 2018 except a single pair of waterproof shoes for this insane monsoon we’re having.
Which is why when I heard about Slow Fashion Season, I got really excited and immediately signed up. And after signing up, I realised I wanted to help the cause, spread the word and get more people to sign up, and so I got in touch with them to become an ambassador.
So, what is slow fashion season?
Fashion is one of the world’s most polluting industries. Slow Fashion Season is a movement, in which we call upon people to collectively not buy any new clothes during June 21st and September 21st. We set our target on 10,000 participants worldwide. Instead of buying: we mend, upcycle, thrift and swap. Our goal together is to make this the largest slow fashion movement the world has ever seen. We are aiming to have 10,000 people commit to not buying any new clothes for 3 months by joining the project on the Slow Fashion Season website. If all those people commit, we save on 360 million liters of water, and reduce CO2 emissions by 1.4 million kgs. The project will only start if 10,000 people sign up, according to the crowdacting principle. And what’s great is thatover 14,000 people across the world signed up!
I know we’re already at the end of Slow Fashion Season and sign have long closed, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take the pledge. How long do you think you can go without new clothes?