How to Curate a Sustainable Wardrobe When You Love Clothes
For a long time now, the fashion industry has been garnering a negative reputation for being one of the top polluters in the world. Each new item of clothing has a substantial carbon footprint, and every year 150 billion pieces of clothing are produced — that’s 20 (!) items for every human inhabiting the Earth. 30 percent of these garments are never sold. In some countries, 40 percent of the clothes people purchase are never used.
Fashion vs Style
A friend of mine once proclaimed that “sustainable fashion means no fashion,” and this sentence really bugged me. I have struggled to balance the perception I have of myself as a responsible consumer with my undeniable passion for clothes, or more specifically, my keen interest in how people dress. Thinking about it made me realise an important distinction: fashion, and the idea of constantly keeping up to date with this season’s ‘must-haves’ and what is ‘on-trend’ is one thing; being aware of your own personal style and which signals you want your clothes to send out into the world is something else.
One of the main challenges I faced on my journey to becoming a more mindful shopper was navigating the complexity of the sustainability topic. As a consumer, there are so many issues you can dive into and educate yourself on, but learning that much of the damage is created simply because of the volume of clothes we buy put things into perspective for me.
The fashion industry thrives on our tendency to buy way too much and encourages a throwaway culture — so how do we escape this hamster wheel of waste?
The first step towards becoming a more conscious consumer is to be smarter about what you buy and avoid filling your closet with unnecessary pieces that you can’t incorporate into your existing or ideal wardrobe — that’s why having a clear mental image of your individual style is key.
Finding your personal style
I was a pretty experimental teenager, dress-wise. I think you could describe my ‘style’ as a hot mess of emo-hippie with elements of kawaii thrown in. During this time I mixed and matched a woven rasta-coloured bag, lace girdles with ripped thigh-high stockings, a studded collar, children’s t-shirts featuring cartoons, and a fisherman’s hat. Did I mention I also had dreadlocks at one point? All of this goes to show that finding your own style takes practice. It’s a bit like learning any other craft, you need to try a lot of different things and experiment with different combinations to figure out why something works. I don’t mean to say that everyone should go full circus clown with their look, just that dressing is something that can be learned; it’s not something that requires a certain skill or talent.
But figuring out which items to buy and which ones to leave on the rack shouldn’t feel like homework, nor should it entail a list of do’s and don’ts. Instead, I’ve found great inspiration (and had a lot of fun) using the following methods which are designed to help you avoid making purchases you’ll regret and ending up with clothes you’ll never wear:
Create a mental image of your style
It’s easier to make good choices when you shop if you have a clearly defined style. Maybe, like me, you’re obsessed with RuPaul’s Drag Race? One of my favourite parts of the show are the themed runway challenges at the end of each episode, which have titles like “Alaskan Winter Realness,” “Faux Fur Fabulous” or “Martian Eleganza Extravaganza.” Though these themes can seem pretty outrageous if you’re constructing an everyday work wardrobe, the idea is still useful. For me, it helps to have a fairly accurate mental image of the person or theme that I’m trying to recreate with my look, or to imagine what RuPaul would yell out if she saw my outfit. What theme or person do you want to channel with your clothes? Knowing this can serve as a useful test when you’re considering a piece of clothing: ask yourself, for example, would early-Seinfeld Elaine Benes wear this? No? Then don’t buy it.
Deconstruct and copy
Find someone whose look you think works really well and try to figure out why it works. My (very stylish) friend once compared learning to dress to taking a writing course: you start by studying the writing styles of the great masters and then ultimately employ their methods in your own writing. It’s similar with clothes. Instead of purchasing a full new outfit, if you see a look that you like, try to deconstruct it to figure out exactly what it is about it that works. Is it the colourful sock with the cropped trouser combination? Do the minimalist earrings highlight the oversized collar? Once you’ve pinpointed why a look works, you may find that you already own some of the items that can be reworked to create your own take on this look.
Modularity
Working with digital interfaces, I often think in systems when I design. What are the contexts a component should work in, and how can it be constructed in a way that fits into the overall pattern library? At my old workplace, we had a rule that a component needed to have at least two use cases in order for it to be adopted into our pattern library. The same principle goes for the items in your wardrobe. When considering a new piece of clothing, ask yourself if you can imagine incorporating it into at least two different outfits for two different occasions. If not, then it’s likely that it will end up collecting dust in the closet. That’s the reason why basic items in neutral shades often don’t go on sale — these are versatile pieces that can always be styled in different ways.
In her book, The Curated Closet, Anuschka Rees describes how we are “a consumerist society that chronically purchases on whims, rendering ourselves constantly broke and simultaneously, without a single thing to wear” (source). I have, too often, in the past bought something that I fell in love with in the spur of the moment, or I’ve seen someone else wearing something and deluded myself into believing this was the one remaining item that would make my look complete. We all do it. I remember once hearing an idea for a theme party that I thought was brilliant: “holiday impulse buys.” It says it all. That draped, colourful skirt did indeed look great when you saw it on the beach in Goa, but does it actually fit the minimalist Scandi look you’re trying to recreate in your everyday life? Not so much.
Having a better overview of how you want to look, and not least which components you already have in your closet, will make you much less likely to succumb to the temptation of impulse shopping. I believe that by taking clothes and style seriously you can become a more sustainable consumer.
To me, it’s less about fashion, and more about caring about what you wear; invest in good quality items, look after them, wear them, and enjoy them. Arming yourself with this knowledge will ultimately help you make smarter decisions and make you less likely to end up with an animal print leotard that will only take up space in your wardrobe.
