5 Top Tips On How To Buy Sustainable Fashion

With so much talk about the need to be more sustainable but so little product available that is clearly identifiable as such, I've put together my top 5 sustainable fashion shopping tips.

1. There’s nothing more sustainable than shopping in your own wardrobe.

Zero miles of carbon emissions getting you to and from the shops. If buying online - even if it is second hand, this will mean packaging and transportation of said new (or new to you) purchase to your door. And this is all before considering the manufacturing processes required to create the garment in the first instance. If it’s in your wardrobe already and you’re going to wear it, not buy something else in place of it, your sustainable rating just went up several notches.

2. Check the composition of the item.

The main fabric makes up anywhere from 50 to 99% of a garment and will be listed first. Lined jackets and coats contain many layers of fusible as well as the garment lining, therefore the main outer fabric might account for only 50% of the overall item. If the main fabric is an unsustainable fabric, such as any synthetic, it’s not a great start on the sustainability scale. But a little caution with this advice; as a poorly produced natural fibre garment can be just as damaging to the planet as a well made synthetic option.

Another consideration in the grand scale of sustainability is that a synthetic option (depending on the product item but let's say cotton leggings versus polyester leggings) may well outlast its natural cousin by five times or more. If a synthetic item is made from recycled polyesters or recycled plastic it’s better than using a virgin source raw material. However, when it comes to the end of life and biodegradability, natural fibres win hands down over any synthetics.

Your best choices currently are organically produced natural fibres or sustainably managed manmade fibres such as Tencel™ Lyocell or Modal. And it’s important it has the Tencel trademark or there are no guarantees you are actually purchasing a sustainably-sourced fibre. I think it’s safe to say it’s not straightforward to rank your potential purchases on their fibre content but it's a major factor in terms of how sustainable an item is.  

3. Use a shopping list

Get to know what is missing from your wardrobe at the start of a season and plan those purchases. Consider your lifestyle right now and make your wardrobe reflect and be proportioned to who you are today. Use the blog I wrote to find out how you want your clothes to make you feel this season and keep them handy! On your phone in your purse, so when you are tempted or actively shopping for something new if it doesn’t match those emotions – put it back on the rail or out of your online shopping basket. Planning not only saves you wasted time but it also saves you wasting money on items that you will end up rarely wearing or struggling to combine with your existing items. 

4. Make sure you love it and know how to wear it over and over on repeat.

Also an item you enjoy wearing and love owning is going to be taken better care of than something you feel little association with.

5. Find out about the brands' credentials.

These guides are not specific (yet) to the individual item you are buying but a guide to the overall sustainability credentials of the brand as well as it’s ethics can be found on many brands and the list is growing.  Have a look and see if your favourite brand is listed in any of the following places. Fashion Revolution Transparency Index, the Good On You App or look for the Positive Luxury mark. 

Unless we revert back to the Bronze Ages when we grew our own yarn source, wove it within our community by people using wooden pedal-powered spinning jennys and weaving looms, making our clothes by hand then wearing until they fell apart, fashion isn’t ever likely to score truly high sustainability marks.

However, we can change the volume of clothes we currently buy and what we buy. From this list, I thought it would be fun to make an easy to remember acronym to help keep these considerations forefront when needed - SCARF 

S – Shop in your wardrobe first

C - Composition. What is the garment I am about to buy made from?

A - A Shopping List. List the items you truly need and check if a purchase aligns with how you want to feel.

R - Repeat Wear. Over and over! Will you? If not it's a no. 

F - Find out. Check the credentials and get to know more about the brand you are buying from.

Clothing left behind its’ solely utility purposes back in the early BC’s after this time it started to be used to denote status, tribe, belonging, decoration and fast forward to today in times of abundance, for pleasure. Unless we are all required to wear some form of utility spacesuit in the future merely to survive on this planet – fashion will continue as a means of expressing ourselves outwardly. It’s not just a human condition; it’s part of the greater animal world. To turn our backs on self-expression, adornment or even using clothes, as camouflage would be to strip us naked, literally of one of our basic needs as humans. I put clothes in the same sensory part of our brain as food. 

It’s hard to suppress the 'must-haves' and the ‘best buys' but conscious and aware consumption is a trend that’s here to stay.

Stylish Wishes!