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Sustainable fashion: The community you want to be a part of
2020 has been a chaotic year; politics has become so polarised, the world has gone into lockdown, and our climate is descending into madness. But in reality, this could be our future if we don’t act now. 2020 was the year to save our planet and to hold the big industries accountable. 2020 was the year to redeem ourselves, but the pandemic has diverted our gaze to the immediate threats we’re facing. It’s time to make our consumption sustainable. Climate crisis Environmental activists have been flooding the media with statements trying to draw the world’s attention to our planet’s cry for help. We are rapidly depleting our resources and most…
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The Horror Story of the Fashion World
Simply put, we are killing the planet. And one of the big contributors to this is the fashion industry. It is the third biggest pollutant on the planet and it continues to rip through our natural resources on a daily basis. We have the solution right under our noses, yet we still do nothing. We, as consumers, need to become more aware of the impact this industry is having. Our money is single-handedly funding our planet’s demise and the majority of us have no idea how. The life cycle of fashion The life cycle of your typical fashion garment is probably a bit of a mystery to most – other…
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Should We Choose Fast Fashion or Conscious Buying?
When it’s easier to turn a blind eye to the problems of fast fashion, how do we even try to start solving the problem? The problems caused by fast fashion Fast fashion is quickly becoming a phrase that is actually starting to mean something to the people spending their money on it. With its utterance conjuring images of sweatshops, mountains of clothing destined to be worn once and never again, and oceans polluted with microfibers, fast fashion seems to be something we hate, but are doing little about. The company Boohoo, now recognised as one of the UK’s online clothing giants and valued at around £4.3 million, has recently been…
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Will fashion ever be truly genderless?
In this article we’ll be investigating whether or not genderless fashion is just a trend, or whether it’s here to stay. While gender-fluidity can seem like quite a recent topic, it can be traced back to 1824. Hidden in the forests of Indiana, a small town called New Harmony was founded. In this town, both men and women could wear shirts and trousers. But how could one small town revolutionise gendered clothing while the rest of the world was trapped in rigid gender-stereotypes for the next 150-200 years? How has vintage and second-hand clothing changed gendered clothing? Now that sustainability is becoming a huge part of life for all of…
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Ambiguous Vintage
‘Vintage’ can mean different things to different people and clever marketing has given it a rise in popularity in the last twenty years. Nowadays, you can find ‘second-hand’ clothes for 99p while a ‘vintage’ tag can push it towards £99. Did we trade in value for cool points when ‘vintage’ became a desirable look? When I first moved to London a few years ago, I was excited to discover events called Vintage Kilo Sales. The idea behind these events was quite simple – a local hall is filled with pre-loved items and the price of the clothes is determined by their weight. A kilo of clothes thus has a set…
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The Supply and Demand Of Vintage Fashion
While online-only brands like ASOS, Boohoo and Missguided chip away at our formerly fashionable high streets, is the same true when it comes to second-hand? Do charity shops, vintage boutiques and thrift stores suffer at the hands of online marketplaces such as eBay and Depop? In December 2011, Mary ‘Queen of Shops’ Portas launched an independent review – recommended by the government – into the future of British high streets, researching the decline she believed to have ‘reached a crisis point’. Adamant at the time that business was the bottom line of the decision-making process, with sentimentality playing no part in her desire to turn the failing high street around,…
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Falling into the Cracks: The Second-Hand Struggle
Second-hand clothes are wardrobe treasures passed on from one person to the next and each unique item tells a story – yet they seem to get a mixed review among shoppers. Does using the term ‘vintage’ free you from the stigma or does buying second-hand clothes make you feel like a second-class citizen? Let’s get it out of the way. A bulk of the stigma around second-hand clothes exists along class lines. For many people who are living from pay cheque to pay cheque, second-hand clothes are the only viable option to dress themselves and their families. Declaring that they shop vintage doesn’t change their everyday reality nor does it suddenly remove the obstacles they face as…
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Vintage vs Charity Stores: ‘Who Are We?’
Second-hand clothes are wardrobe treasures passed on from one person to the next and each unique item tells a story – yet they seem to get a mixed review amongst shoppers. Does using the term ‘vintage’ free you from the stigma or does buying second-hand clothes make you feel like a second-class citizen? By Annabel LindsayInstagram: @annabellindsay To quote the official Wild Child herself, aka Miss Poppy Moore, “If we could just call this stuff vintage and add three zeros to the price tag, I could totally get into it”. This very important pop culture reference, I believe, is the perfect opener for exploring the stigma woven into second-hand clothing. The term ‘second-hand’ seems irrelevant when buying…
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Thrift Fashion Hauls: Changing Trends, Changing Attitudes
By Carissa KotyuhaInstagram: @carissablount Twitter: @carissastoryy “Fashion trends tend to repeat themselves”, said my mom on several occasions over my 24 years on this planet. Every 20-30 years, some trend highly distinguishable for its presence in the last few decades pops up again on the fashion runway and trickles down to the storefronts of Forever 21’s across the country. From high-waists to bell-bottoms, fashion trends seem to fade out just as quickly as they came in. Most of our closets and drawers are filled to the brim with pieces that reflect trends that have come and gone, but are eventually sorted through and then donated or thrown away. But a growing…
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Second-hand Stories
There’s something magical about shopping for second hand clothes; it’s a treasure hunt for a hidden gem and when you find something, you cherish it forever. Words by Rachel McMinn Since I was a young girl, I’ve always loved second-hand clothes, to me it was normal – I’d always get clothes given to me from my mum’s friend’s daughters, my brother’s friends, my brother’s girlfriends etc. and whenever my mum would give me a bag of second-hand clothes I would be so excited. Fashion has always been a love of mine, so to get a load of new clothes without spending a penny was fantastic, I’d try everything on and give my…
