In the face of globalisation, thousands of online market places and easily available information we are truly spoiled for choice. You can literally buy anything you fancy with the click of a button. These items are made anywhere in this world, under any possible condition, so what can we do to make sure we’re sustainable and ethical in our purchasing habits?
I can still remember that my mum used to only own 2 pairs of high heels in the 80s while she owns probably 50 pairs nowadays. She used to sew and knit most of our children’s clothes as items were just not available to buy in the shops or it was simply more expensive to buy them as compared to making them yourself. My grandma on the other hand would fix our clothes time and time again and safe all the buttons and zipper from worn out clothes in case she needed them to replace on another piece. Nothing was really thrown away if it could still be fixed.
The times have of course changed drastically nowadays! It’s much more expensive and time consuming to make anything yourself because time is money, right?! And why fix it, if you can just buy it new at Primark for £5? I went to a cobbler the other day and asked to get my shoes reheeled and he quoted me £40. That’s more than what I paid for the shoes, so how can I now justify this cost? It’s certainly not so easy nowadays to be sustainable and ‘do the right thing’ but we need to make a conscious effort to do so. There are simple, easy and fun ways to resist the temptation of being an active member of our throw-away society.
1) Don’t Buy So Much
The best way to achieve sustainability is of course stop shopping! But that’s easier said than done with new fashion designers popping up at every corner, some brands like Zara launching 4 collections a year and for some reason things are on sale around the clock. There’s no more need to wait for winter and summer sale as we now also have mid season sales, special deal and God knows what. On that of that fashion is becoming more and more affordable and it’s difficult to resist a bargain!
However, instead of cluttering up your wardrobe with a million pieces you just bought because “it was a deal” and you end up never wearing it, just focus on a few favourites! Buy quality pieces you can wear time and time again and you can maybe even resale at a good price on Ebay, Vinted, Depop or a car boot sale when you don’t like to wear it anymore.
2) Buy Vintage Clothes and Safe The Planet
Buying vintage clothes and 2nd hand items is an excellent way to be sustainable and ethical! First, you mostly support small private sellers, charities and your vintage corner shop and you do something good for your community. There are no big corporations out there who trade with vintage clothes as it’s way too labour intensive to market these individual pieces. It’s mostly small local businesses, charities and individuals who take on the task. You therefore don’t support huge corporations that have received much bad press for human, animal and environmental exploitation such as Amazon, Nike, and Dior, Canada Goose and Louis Vuitton, just to name a few.
Second, you safe yourself a bunch of money as of course you get 2nd hand clothes for a fraction of the retail value. Instead of being able to buy one pair of trousers, you may be able to afford 10! Win win!
Third, if you buy vintage and 2nd hand you will have a unique, individual style as you never know what you will find. Stop chasing fashion trends and just buy “what’s hot right now” but make your own decisions and stand up for your style. Always remember that now everything that’s “hot, right now” may suit your body shape and style. This just reminds me of some guys wearing skinny jeans who definitely should not be wearing skinny jeans!
Most vintage pieces can be styled in many different ways and some people may not even realise it’s actually vintage. Nowadays everything is in trend, crop tops and 80s tie dye, 70s bell bottom trousers and 60s mini skirt, minimalist designs and bold colours, lose fit trousers and skinny jeans, you name it! All these styles originated in the 2000s and it’s all back in fashion. Just don’t overstyle your look. I suggest mixing modern with vintage to look ultra stylish!
In addition, you also safe this planet from more waste! It is crazy to think that the average (!) American throws away around 37kg of clothes and home furnishings every year! On a global scale this is even more scary when you hear that 92 million tonnes of textiles are being thrown away each year, that’s one fully rubbish truck of clothes being dumped into our landfills every second (see BBC article here)!!
There are so many charity shops, homeless people and animals shelters that could repurpose these items, that are mostly in absolutely perfect condition. So please not only consider buying 2nd hand but also recycle, resell, and donate your unwanted clothes and don’t throw them away!
In conclusion, by buying 2nd hand clothes and accessories you do a lot of good for a lot of people and our planet.
3) Stop Buying Big Brands
I try to avoid big brands as much as possible unless I buy items second hand and don’t directly enrich these businesses even more. There is just a lack of transparency where the product came from, who made it, how were the raw materials sourced, etc. The only tag you see on a fashion item is the country where it was produced and the material composition, that’s all. You don’t know how the workers were treated, how the animals were treated who’s skin you’re wearing, what happened during the supply chain and how much waste that company is producing. Most employees of the businesses wouldn’t even be able to answer these questions, not even the fashion buyers. I therefore suggest to support small local businesses as much as possible as they take a more active stance in controlling the supply chain from start to finish.
At Maya’s Curiosities we only work with hand-picked small artisan crafts makers who are either making all the items themselves or only run just a small workshop with a close-knit group of staff. We don’t lose track of where our items and raw materials come from and primarily work with women run businesses that we consider much more ethical overall. Small businesses like us can also only buy small quantities of products and often unique individual pieces which means that we can’t buy from big factories even if we wanted too. No major leather production facility would accept an order of 5 pieces here and there, but you would need to order 100 pieces or more in one go.
Small businesses also don’t have to answer to shareholders or make profit no matter what the sacrifice. I guess we all agree that sweatshops, environmental exploitation and animal abuse are wrong. However, if you have high earning executives sitting at the decision table of a large fashion house where the only aim is ‘maximise sales, profits and power’, these thoughts may become a secondary thought. I therefore suggest supporting small businesses wherever possible, whether it’s shopping at your local farmers market, your vintage or charity shop down the road, or individual crafts makers you can easily find on Etsy for instance.
4) Get Crafty and Repurpose Old Clothes
One of my favourite ways to be more sustainable is to get crafty!! It is absolutely amazing how many things you can make out of old clothes if you put your mind to it. Here's a great blog post to inspire you, and another one. If you’re not a very crafty person or are good at sewing, then an easy way to freshen up your wardrobe is with iron-on patches! These are cheap to buy on eBay and you can instantly upgrade your old denim jacket, jeans or T-shirt.
You could also quickly change the style of your oldschool jeans but cutting of the legs and turning them into shorts or turn your long sleeve into a t-shirt. Also totally on trend as I mentioned before are hippie tie dye patterns which are experiencing a total revival. You can easily do this at home with just a piece of string, some organic fabric dye and then you’re good to go. There are just a few examples of what you can do and there are tons of blog posts out there and don’t forget to check Pinterest!
5) Buy Quality Products That Last
A perfect quote for this is “I’m too poor to buy cheap things”. Isn’t it true that when you buy cheap things, they tend to break more often and because they were so cheap, what’s the point of fixing them? As a consequence, you keep buying cheap stuff all the time, things you may just use, then throw away. I’m just as guilty of this crime as everyone else. I can’t even count how many umbrellas I’ve bought over the years and still I don’t learn my lesson. Why don’t just safe my money and buy one good one that actually works, rather than looking like a maniac trying to tame my shitty £1 Poundland umbrella in the storm?
I’m trying to be better and rather buy less, but quality that lasts. To be fair buying vintage items is mostly a safe bet. If this pair of boots survived for 40 years, I’m sure it will make it another 10 years at least, right? The same goes for vintage clothes. If the colour is still vibrant and the material is still soft after so many decades and so many washes, this is quality you can dream of when you buy things at times nowadays. Things used to be built to last but this is not the case anymore. In fact, there’s now even a term for this “planned obsolescence” when products are purposefully built to fail after time. Crazy, right?
I therefore suggest you try and only buy quality products that last. I wouldn’t recommend buying luxury products as a rule of thumb as many of those business are also major corporations with huge profit margins and hidden unethical business practices. As I mentioned earlier supporting small businesses and craftsmen is a good first step as we have pride in our work and don’t want to sell you garbage. It is a more personal relationship to create the product and send our babies into the world and we want them to flourish and be loved forever.
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