The Importance of Wearing Your Clothes Again & Again (& Again!)

This article was written by Sharon David

Sustainability. A word we all know and cherish but how many of us actually follow the guides to living a sustainable life. Sustainability is more than recycling your water bottle or not throwing your containers into the ocean we can look at it in a fashionable sense. Many of us acknowledge the global problems that we are faced with but never propose any solutions. For this issue we can propose the theory of re-wearing clothes.

During these uncertain times the amount of people purchasing new clothes have decreased by 3%, on average because more and more people have realised that they were buying without real purpose.  Most of us do quick meaningless purchases and don’t think whether what we are purchasing is actually of need or if we are just buying for the sake of it being a “bargain. Before the lockdown it was buy now worry later but as many became redundant due to the pandemic we realised the importance of saving your money and cherishing your clothing by promoting longevity in our pieces. Impulsive buying that we all once used to do became more and more scarce and could be looked at as a privilege to just buy clothes for the sake of it

I am sure many (me included) stopped caring about the way they looked and cared more about their own comfort, seeing your favourite shorts or joggers that you had begun to live in after 2 washes were bubbling over and realising that they were unable to be worn again yet had an extensive collection of cheap dresses that had no use to us at that current moment in time. All that buying we were doing become very clear that it was just unhealthy to our bank account as well as being very unhealthy for the planet because the clothes being purchased are not of good quality.

The changing of seasons has a pivotal effect on our wardrobes; living in a city as fast paced as London different things according to the different seasons will come in and out of vogue. It’s often out with the light summer pieces and sandals and in with the heavy jackets and chunky boots. Many of us turn to fast fashion stores when the seasons change because we want it quickly and as cheap as possible. Instead of running to these stores to get a quick change of season fix, I would love to introduce a new way to get your fall/winter wardrobe ready: by bringing new life into your wardrobe through vintage and thrift-store finds

A thrift store is a charitable shop where you find gently used items for a discounted price and sometimes you can find such amazing pieces at such a great bargain. The concept of “Thrifting” can be looked at as a somewhat angel, it enables one to save so much money as well as time. Those clothes that are able to be passed on emphasise the fact the clothing has longevity, perhaps helping us to realise that our clothing will not deteriorate after 2 washes, heling one to see that buying something a bit more pricey than the fast fashion one but withholding the “30 wear rule” would be of better value towards us.

 Marc Jacobs once said “clothes mean nothing till someone lives in them”, so imagine how much that piece of clothing would mean having had multiple people living in them – there would be different stories and experiences following the clothing. Most of our favourite celebrity’s thrift so I am sure that if it is good enough for them it is good enough for us.

The fast fashion house that collapsed in Bangladesh (The Rana Plaza) home to several garment factories that killed thousands of people as well as leaving thousands injured was all in the name of mass producing clothing of cheap quality. Many of those people died for you to disregard that clothing after one wear, the true cost of fast fashion is encouragement enough for you to re-wear.   And the worst thing is they died and were injured being exploited to make cheap clothing for us to disregard in less than a month.  If we don’t want to wear clothing of better quality for the sake of environment and reduction of landfill then perhaps we can wear it for those children and mothers that died at the hand of a sewing machine.

By reducing the amount we buy and trying to avoid fast fashion stores on a whole allows there to be change, after all finding second hand clothes expands the life span of a product which helps the planet in the long term. Try and challenge yourself to treat your closet as a prized possession where it’s something you can be proud of, a capsule collection of timeless and versatile pieces that all go together and that are easy to update for a new season with proper styling and the right layering. A good example of a timeless piece would be a Blazer – they can be worn all year round: over a mini-dress with strappy heels in the summer, as a suit paired with tailored pants, a turtleneck and sneakers in autumn, the list is endless.

I hope this article has helped you to understand the importance of re-wearing and allows you to make the mini changes to create a better and safer planet for us all. If you would like to discuss this further, please reach out either social media or at sharonadesoladavid@gmail.com.