Fast fashion is destructive, slow fashion expensive.
Can’t we see sustainability as an inspiration instead of a limitation? Something opening new doors for thriving ideas.
As I am going along with my preceding thoughts, the photos date of my recent secondhand shop visits and finds.
In my experience “sustainable” often gets associated with expensive, boring and a lot of effort.
A lot of effort for something that you could be achieved in a way more convenient manner.
When we talk about getting into more sustainable ways of living, whether that concerns consumption, building or disposing, it is often connoted with responsibilities and guilt or despair.
Couldn’t we find some “sustainable” practices, that are neither boring nor expensive?
What are you associating with sustainable?
Acts you must take in order to further prevent the exploitation of resources, nature, animals and humans. Recycle your rubbish, don’t drive a car, don’t buy, be responsible while feeling guilty of not doing enough?
How does a habit need to be for you to stick with it and apply it to your life? Exciting, rewarding, fulfilling…
Does guilt make you thrive?
Sustainable doesn’t have to be about guilt, it can be about creativity!
Slow fashion
What are you associating with slow fashion?
The fashion industry is one of the most destructive ones. Rapid changing trends and the need to buy more and more at ridiculously cheap prices, shopping becomes a mental therapy never satisfied and never cured.
Meanwhile we have no idea how to handle the waste.
Slow fashion is trying to be an answer to that. Keeping manufacture local, paying fair wages minding the waste production. Using materials that are organic. Buying less, but more conscious.
All that comes with a price, literally.
When you are used to Shirts at 5 or even 2 bucks, how would you justify spending 250 for a sustainable piece of clothing?
We are facing an issue there. Producing fair and responsible has its cost, who is willing to pay for it? Not the vast majority.
But Slow fashion doesn’t have to be expensive!
One other way to keep your fashion intake slow is simply not to buy anything. However, if you still enjoy fashion, if you enjoy changing your clothes, owning different pieces and colours and prints to mix and match. Fitting all your different moods and occasions throughout the year. Not buying any new additions for your closet might feel like a big restriction.
And meanwhile the guilt of not wanting to be a part of the fast fashion wheel might keep you out for a time, how do you want to base your choices on that guilt and stay inspired?
Where I want to go with this is; Second hand shops.
While you still pay the same price as you would for fast fashion, you are not the cause for the acceleration of the chain anymore.
Whatever you buy isn’t supporting the fast fashion industry anymore, meanwhile you can keep on buying clothes, as many as you like, for an affordable price.
You could even get pieces that you could never afford new, whether sustainable or not.
As for that matter there are second hand shops, that are specialised in only sell designer pieces. You could buy that bag, a real one without having to empty the savings account or reach out to a cheap replicate.
How much would a silk shirt cost you, new? For sure it wouldn’t come for 4 euros!
Not having to restrict your pleasures linked to buying and trying on new clothes. Or even owning that one expensive piece, that you have always wanted.
Never knowing whether you’ll leave emptyhanded but inspired by what you have seen. Or if you’ll find your new favourite piece of clothing.
...or get surprised by rather particular objects.
...anything seems fancier when you add "Paris"
All that is sustainable it is slow fashion, but it isn’t boring nor expensive and it doesn’t conflict with any form of guilt.
Slow fashion can be cheap and sustainable doesn’t have to be boring!
Thank you all to come by, feel free to share what you think about the subject, I would be very interested to hear your points of view:) Have a very lovely week!
All photos and text are mine taken and written by me.
Lovely article and insight into your shopping and ecological stance, dearest @kesityu.fashion : thank you for sharing... I feel quite envious of the huge shop you get to trawl around!! But you must come and splash out at our Telese market one day, with all the 50c and 1 Euro stalls! :-D
I have bought very little new clothing in my life, and had a strong ecological stance early on, from being brought up in wild nature on a Scottish island... And then as an art student, could only afford the bargain box in the charity shops! In Scotland, we have jumble sales in rural areas, and this was always a treasure trove of cheapest-ever fabrics and clothing.
As an 'adult' I've gotten increasingly frustrated at not finding what I want to wear even on the 50c stall: I want things to fit in a different way now than when I was younger and could accept tighter clothing on my body... Now I want big beautiful wide trousers and flouncy dresses, loose tops and stretchy vests... I am delving BIG TIME into studying intensively so that I can be much more discerning about both what I am buying as raw material, and constructing new clothing from old.
I cannot imagine buying new clothing again! Especially on such a low budget as I live on! I'm gifted around 140 Euros per month via my Patreon, and occasional other donations: I LOVE how having such a small budget naturally forces us to make things ourselves, and to find solutions from nature or abandoned nearby, instead of thoughtlessly consuming. It is soooo powerfully empowering, to slow down soooo much that I can feel the energy in every stitch and colour choice, every completed garment radiating vitality and self-expression...
These are secrets which have been stolen from us by the fashion industry: the occulting of this magic-of-second-skin has kept us in slavery to ill-fitting clothing and in continuous effortful effort to find the perfect clothes - which of course, can only be perfect for us if we make them by hand!
Much love!
Where to begin...:)
So I am flirting with the thought of coming to Italy at some time, not just yet, but it has been definitely too long since I had last been there, so yes, when I am on my way I let you know, and then I would absolutely love to stray around those stalls!! There is something about (flea)markets, even though the big halls are really cool too, but I love to be outdoors while just wandering around looking at things, and the best is to have a coffee in between...:) (where obviously nothing tops italy)
I also had that phase, where I was sick off the secondhand stuff (somewhere teenage) but then I quickly returned:) it does help a lot though if you know how to adjust or change clothes yourself... or even just develop a "better" patience. sometimes you find lots and sometimes nothing.
And yes, I do feel that there is a lot of inspiration, coming from limitations! To the stage where my creativity kind of blocks if I have too many options.:)
Indeed the second-skin is becoming something very impersonal, when in a way it should represent you... it is like the fur we do not have anymore:)
It was lovely to hear your ways and thoughts! Thank you for stopping by😘
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I have never been the type to follow fashion trends. Once I see that everyone is wearing it then I automatically don't want it anymore, till maybe the later days.
This was a beautifully written and inspiring article. Thank you for sharing 🤗
😂 I can relate to that!!
Thank you!😊
You're very much welcome lovely ✨
I think there are many people who refuse to buy used or second-hand clothes, perhaps because they don't want to lose their status, they don't like to know who else has worn those clothes or I don't know what else... clothes are clothes and if they are I use it pretty, that's my criteria, I don't pay attention to where it comes from. Many times it makes me happier to buy second-hand clothes and for a great piece before paying a lot for new clothes that surely do not have the quality of the things I find at fairs 😅.
Aah yes for sure I heard those arguments before, that you do not know who was wearing them before... in a way I understand even though it wouldnt bother me at all as you say I would always choose the quality over the "status of new" or however we want to call it..:) and washing the clothes is enough for me to get rid of the "person before":)