9 tips on how to make your wardrobe more sustainable
Over 200,000 tonnes of garment and textile waste are sent to landfills each year in the UK. Here are some tips and ideas of what you can do to help reuse and reduce your own garments to help reduce textile waste.
1. Go through your wardrobe and challenge yourself to wear something you haven’t worn recently. Rediscover your clothing and take those your clothes out of isolation. The average item in our wardrobe has a 2.5 active life span, extending this can help reduce the carbon footprint of your clothes.
2. Fix it before you throw it! Are you throwing the item away because it has a hole or is damages? There are lots of different creative mending techniques you can do you to fix. Applique patches or embroidery on top of a hole or stain can be a cute way to solve the problem.
3. Reduce the temptation!! Make it easy for yourself by unsubscribing from all those mailing lists that pop up and make you want to shop. Unfollow fast fashion brands on IG and block their Ads. They really really want you to shop and spend money rather than thinking of the wider impacts of purchasing that item so stand your ground and make your own decision of where to shop rather than being subconsciously influenced.
4. Rent instead of buy. There are loads of way to wear a new outfit other than buying them. Platforms like NUW Wardrobe, HURR, My Wardrobe HQ allow you to rent clothes so you have have a fresh new look without needing to buy anything and use up more resources.
5. Focus on your style rather than following a trend. Look for items that build your own personal style rather than being influenced by trends that come and go. Create a strong visual identity for yourself by sourcing timeless pieces for your wardrobe. Choose pieces that will last and have a long life-time in your wardrobe.
6. Host a clothes swap. Invite your friends and exchange clothes. Put a few guidelines in place like 3-5 items each that are of a good quality. There are probably clothes you no longer wear that your friend has secretly had her eye and and vice versa. OR if you don’t want to host, there are plenty of organised clothes swaps going on.
7. Think second hand FIRST. Rather than heading to a high street fast fashion brand first why not try have a look for a vintage or second hand item. For the best success on Ebay, be really specific with what you’re looking for; put in the colour, style and size of item you think you’re looking for and see what comes up. If theres a brand you like, search that too. Oxfam has a lot of its item online and vintage shops like Beyond Retro, Rokit and Depop have loads of cute pieces.
8. Upcycle your clothing. Get creative and think about ways you can remake items within your wardrobe. This is quite a big topic so I’ll do another blog post about different ways you can upcycle your wardrobe. I am hosting tshirt workshops were you can come and learn how to remake your old tshirts by cutting and panelling them together to make a new one.
9. Share your knowledge! Once you start to make small changes in how you view and purchase clothing help others along the way by sharing what you have learnt and your own tips and ideas for how we can all reduce our garment and textile waste.