Fast fashion has successfully convinced many people that their clothing lasts for a single season before falling out of style and that an outfit can only be immortalized on your Instagram feed once.
However, this is slowly changing; over the past few years, consumers have become more aware of the environmental impact of their purchases and are looking to spend money on sustainably produced items.
Sustainable clothing is often expensive clothing. These pieces of clothing are better viewed as investments; years after you buy them, your Reformation jeans will still hold up. We may not always have the resources to make these investments but we can still sustainably revamp our fashion.
The most sustainable thing we can do is continue to wear pieces we already own and reduce the harmful effects of textile waste on the environment. Here are some ways to do just that:
1. Find new ways to wear existing pieces.
This is probably the quickest way to switch up your look, and you don’t need to permanently change any clothing to do it. One very easy way to do this is to wear your favourite button-down shirt as a light jacket.
If you own a dress, chances are you can wear it as a skirt by simply adjusting how you wear it. Slip-style midi dresses work well for this purpose and there are a few different ways to do this; putting on a shirt or blouse over your dress is the easiest way to try this out.
If you’re feeling more adventurous, try to play around with the placement of the dress itself by wearing the neck of the dress around your waist or hips. If the upper half of your dress is your favourite part, try wearing it as a top instead. You can tuck the lower half into another skirt and experiment with different silhouettes.
2. Alter your pieces
Depending on the material of your clothing, all you need is a pair of scissors to alter them. Denim tends to hold up especially well when cropped, and you don’t need to sew new hems after you alter them. Trousers can be transformed into shorts in minutes, and you can crop longer tops for a more casual look. You can even alter basic shirts by cutting their sleeves or altering necklines.
For a slightly more intensive DIY, try bleaching your denim; this is a great way to create a more interesting piece.
3. Stay inspired
If you are ever struggling to come up with new ways to wear your clothes, there are a few different places you can turn to for inspiration. Julia Dang is a fashion influencer who champions a DIY approach to sustainability and regularly documents all the different ways she wears her clothes. As with most topics, Pinterest boards are full of inspiration on new ways to wear older items.
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