If you’re anything like me, you love Personal Styling and shopping–maybe even a little too much. The feeling of getting a new item of clothing can be compared to Christmas morning for personal fashion lovers. However, as awesome as new clothing is, buying into fast fashion leaves a large carbon footprint on our earth. Did you know that the fashion and styling industry is actually the second largest polluter of our world, just behind the oil industry? Specifically, fast fashion emphasizes lower costs, and speedy production. This is a result of trying to keep up with new collections inspired by celebrities and designer collections. Fast fashion tendencies are extremely detrimental to the environment since there is an urgency to create clothing quickly and at a low cost so it’s affordable to the masses. Reducing cost and time means that many corners are being cut. The impacts include an increased amount of textile waste, water pollution, and a large amount of toxic chemicals being used. At this point you may feel a little guilty, but fear not. Here are tips you can use to start shopping sustainable, yet still look stylish as ever!
Buy from sustainable Personal Styling brands
Perhaps, the hardest on your wallet, buying from sustainable styling brands may cost you a little more money, but they’re ultimately very beneficial to the environment. Reformation is arguably one of the best-known sustainable brands, and clearly there is a reason why. Not only does Reformation have the ultimate cool girl vibe with a cult following, but the company is also ultra-conscious of its environmental footprint. According to the brand’s website, “RefScale tracks our environmental footprint by adding up the pounds of carbon dioxide emitted and gallons of water we use, and pounds of waste we generate. Then we calculate how Reformation’s products help reduce these impacts, compared with most clothes bought in the US. We share this information on every product page of our website and tell you exactly what impact each garment has on the environment.” There are plenty more options for sustainable styling brands too, including H&M, that just released their 2019 Conscious Collection aimed at making you look good and feel good.
Another way to use sustainable styling products is to do a personal clothing exchange with your friends and even neighbors.
Everyone has those clothes in their closet that they just never seem to wear. However, instead of throwing these items out just to end up in a landfill, try sharing your fashion and Personal Styling with friends. Host a girl’s night where everyone must bring at 5 items of clothing, and you can trade around with everyone! Soon everyone will have gotten rid of the clothes they don’t wear anymore, and everyone will come home with something new–for free I might add!
Do-it-yourself Personal Styling
Pinterest fanatics, rejoice! DIY is a fun way for you to upscale old unwanted piece of clothing, and it is a perfect sustainable styling option. Customizing personal clothing doesn’t have to be hard or expensive. I recommend starting with an old pair of jeans or a jean jacket (You can get buy those for super cheap at a thrift store.)
To upgrade jeans just try cutting off the hem at the bottom and add some distress, soon you’ll have a new pair of jeans. Although, my personal favorite DIY is painting on denim! I love bringing out my inner artist to create a completely unique piece. I recently thrifted a pair of mom jeans from Goodwill, and used cookie cutters to paint stars all over them. I think they might be my favorite pair of jeans now!
Shop vintage styling
My personal favorite on the list is shopping and styling vintage. Go to your local thrift store, and you just might find a hidden gem. For those of you that are put off by buying someone’s used clothes, don’t worry. There are plenty of ways to disinfect clothing, or just simply throw it in the washing machine on the hot or warm cycle, and you’re good to go. The best part about shopping vintage is that you have a unique piece that no one else will be able to get their hands on. In addition, fashion is known to recycle itself so you will probably come across items from 20 years ago that are in style right now. Quite possibly my favorite thrifted item, is this cropped beaded jean jacket that is straight out of the 2000’s, which is having a moment right now.
These tricks will gave you some insight into how to support sustainable fashion! Shopping green can be fun, and keep you looking as stylish as ever!
Keep it sassy (and green), Indy
Libby, Fashion and Personal Styling Intern for Beth Divine Style
