Post Thirteen: The Sustainable Wardrobe

Good Afternoon!

The sun is shining, I'm in a flowery maxi-dress to mark the occassion and the sunglasses are tentatively in my handbag. I've got pink nails with white crackle on them and a flowery headband on and my only concession to the chill is a long cardigan. It's definitely getting close to summer weather even if we have only just started spring! So following on from this post about your summer wardrobe I wanted to do a blog about how you can make your wardrobe more sustainable and eco-friendly.

I found a brilliant article by Amisha Ghadiali called 12 Rules To Dress By which you can read here. It has a fab print-out that you can keep in your wardrobe to remind you of the rules before you go shopping and a little chart where you can keep track of how sustainable any new additions are.

If you want the full run-down on ways to keep your wardrobe up to date and still eco-friendly you'll need to read the article, but the basic principles are:

Do you really need new? I love the term pre-loved that's now used to describe clothes from charity shops or something you've been given by a friend. We're not talking your grandmas cast offs here, getting a group of friends together to swap clothes is a great socialising opportunity and you all walk away with a new outfit.

Research Ethical Designers. Green is the new black on the fashion scene, which means it's becoming so much easier to buy clothes made from organic or recycled fabrics, or that ensure fair trading standards are met for their suppliers.

Clear out your wardrobe. Not only will you find clothes you forgot you had and will now be wearing all the time again, you'll get extra space in your wardrobe once you give the stuff you don't want to charity. Now you can fill that space with pre-loved, sustainable clothing instead!

Get creative! You can pick up a sewing machine for the price of a new handbag and with it you can make hundreds of new creations - customise your old clothes, use old clothes to make a jar of hearts or even turn old clothes into fashion accessories. A fancy cuff from a dress/top can easily be turned into a new bracelet!


I'm going to be printing off the chart and writing down everything that goes into my wardrobe this year. Hopefully it'll get more environmentally friendly as the year goes on! Who wants to join me?