Being Discerning with the Clothes You Buy

Fast fashion is a contentious topic in today’s world. Many people are hoping to find ways to buy clothes they like but they also don’t negatively impact the environment. This can be a difficult needle to thread. 

At first, the extra effort that it takes to figure out whether each item of clothing comes from a sustainable source might serve to make the whole ordeal much more difficult, but once you get into the rhythm of it, you can feel more comfortable in the knowledge that your choice of clothes doesn’t come with a hidden cost. Starting, as always, is the difficult part. So, how do you get into this habit to start with?

Being Part of the Cycle

It’s valuable to examine your own role in this process. Fast fashion requires people to buy the clothes in the first place in order to thrive, and this means that removing yourself from that, and instead opting to spend your money with a sustainable brand can make a difference. 

As with any large-scale movement, it’s easy to think that you’re not going to make a difference individually, but change often occurs incrementally, and being a part of the change in a direction you believe is valuable does contribute toward making a difference. 

In order to be part of this in regard to clothes, you might also think about selling your older clothes instead of disposing of them, providing they’re still wearable. There are platforms where you can do this like Vinted, but then you might also need to turn to shipping companies like Shiply when it comes to bulk transportation or if you decide to take this mentality and apply it to your other larger belongings.

Identifying Sustainable Brands

So, does this mean that you should turn your attention entirely to sustainable brands? This could be a positive place to start, but it can be difficult if you’re not sure which brands are sustainable. This is often a quality that’s marketed quite strongly, and that can make it fairly easy to track them down, but then another problem can emerge, the price. 

Part of the reason that fast fashion is appealing to people is because it’s affordable. Higher quality, sustainable clothing can be more expensive, and this can stop you from buying clothes as often as you might want to, something that might turn you toward second-hand platforms, as mentioned previously.

Conducting Research

The truth of the matter, though, is that there are a lot of brands and a lot of conflicting information. Greenwashing is something that you might encounter regularly with modern businesses—brands who attempting to make themselves appear more ecologically sustainable in order to win over consumers. 

You can’t always take information you hear about brands at face value, and this means that you have to conduct your own research, something that can be equally difficult due to the same problem of conflicting information. A part of this process might then be that you work to understand what misinformation looks like, and how you can spot it for yourself.