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Can we throw-away the throw-away culture?
In the UK, 350,000 tonnes of wearable clothing are disposed of in landfill per year. Instead of repairing, mending or thrifting old clothes, many are buying and disposing of clothes that are barely even a year old. It has created a ‘throw-away culture’ that feeds off trends, fashion statements and influencer culture. So, how has throw-away culture grown so fashionable? Why won’t it ever go away? And what can we do to stop it? The growth of throw-away culture The new norm of style over substance has sky-rocketed over recent years. The growth in technology and the internet has aided many to add to throw-away culture, with the likes of…
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OMG I can’t wear the same outfit twice!
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Sustainable Fashion: From 1990s ‘Sloppy Eco Style’ to Sustainable Stylish Fashion Trend
How Sustainable Fashion has entered mainstream thought and is beginning to take over the fashion industry. Sustainability has become part of a revolutionary fashion movement and is no longer considered sloppy eco fashion but has taken over the stylish and luxurious fashion catwalks of major fashion capitals of the world.
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My Year Without Fast Fashion
Written by Shahed EzaydiIg: @shahedezaydi In January 2018, I set myself the goal to cut my very bad habit of near-weekly deliveries of all things fashion. I would spend a significant amount of my free time mindlessly scrolling through websites and putting things into online baskets without really thinking about it. The increase in pay later schemes meant I often wasn’t processing the fact I had actually bought something. After looking into the absolutely disastrous impact the fashion industry has on our fragile planet, I decided enough was enough. I couldn’t change anything on a large scale, but I could put a stop to my own persistent consumerism. So, I…
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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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Vintage Fashion: Sustainable Style
I used to walk past high street shops and fill to the brim with excitement. There is no doubt that the feeling got my adrenaline pumping. As a British girl living on the continent, my options for shopping were limited in my eyes. I took trips to London just to go to the Oxford Street Primark. My friends and I would go mad in that shop, buying all the latest bright-coloured trendy tops. Although Primark was my favourite store, as a thirteen-year old I could easily be dragged into any famous high street shop. The whole experience was thrilling to me. A shopping trip never ended in disappointment. I was…
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Vintage Fashion: A Wardrobe of Hidden Histories
By Molly TaubeInstagram: @smollmol Crafting an outfit can be a form of art, a ritual of creative selection and self-expression. How will you present yourself that day, what energy would you like to embody, how can your wardrobe facilitate capturing who you are or want to be? Clothes not only have utility but intrinsic value as forms of self-expression and a way of understanding yourself through your fashion choices. It makes sense then, that an important choice is what we will wear. This outfit selection can be as subtle or as captivating as you want depending on how you feel that day. Having the right clothes for the right mood…
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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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Second Hand Fashion: From Milan to London
By Mariangela BrunaInstagram: @maribruknitwear My view of second-hand clothes changed over the years and when I moved country. I grew up in Italy between the ’70s and the ’80s. Second-hand was definitely associated with second-class, poverty; not being able to afford new stuff was considered a kind of failure. My mum always bought new clothes for my brother and me. Although we had older cousins we very rarely inherited any clothes from them. I suppose my parents’ generation was still too close to WW2 (that some of them had experienced directly as children) and the poverty and hardship associated with wartimes. Plus, in the ’70s the economy was still growing,…
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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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Here’s how switching to sustainable fashion helped me recover from my eating disorder.
I realised I reached rock bottom in a changing room. I looked at my reflection: an underweight girl wearing a dress. How was it possible? I finally reached my goal size, why did I still hate the way that dress fit me? I see that 17 year-old girl rolling her eyes as I’m asked ‘How does fashion impact your mental health?’. And then I see her laughing as I answer, ‘Positively’. More Harm Than Good As contradictory as it may seem, I do think that fashion causes people more harm than good. ‘Oh my goooood, please no, she’s starting with that skinny models and photoshop thing’, I hear you crying.…
