Did you know that the fashion industry contributes 8% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the world, and with 40 million tons ending up in landfill every year, it’s no wonder there so much talk about being more sustainable with our clothing choices!
At Niftiee we all try our best to buy from sustainable retailers, but this can sometimes be a challenge when you don’t know who is doing what to be sustainable and sometimes companies lie, a term known as “Green Washing”. If a company is “green washing” they are claiming to be more sustainable than they actually are, they may have a small section of items made from recycled products or take your old items and promise to recycle them (and they don’t!).
What is real sustainable fashion?
Sustainable or eco-friendly fashion is clothing that has been produced and sold that has less of an impact on the environment that than of regular fashion options that have not taken a sustainable production route.
Many of our favourite fashion shops are considered “fast fashion” meaning they create cheap, low quality, trendy pieces to be sold on the high street with a fast turnaround. As the items are trend based, they also tend to be discarded quicker, meaning more waste and they become less likely to be brought second hand. Unfortunately, these companies are the biggest cause of pollution for the fashion industry.
How can we be more sustainable whilst still looking good?
It’s a big change to try and be more sustainable, it’s also hard to resist the temptation of buying new clothes if you’re a bit of a shopping addict. We’ve found the 5 R’s of sustainable fashion to help you have a more eco-friendly fashion sense:
1) Reduce
By reduce we mean have a declutter, a clear out, a spring clean, whatever you want to call it it’s about reducing the amount of stuff we have crammed in our wardrobes. If you tend to wear the same few outfits, chances are you don’t need the piles of clothes you’ve been keeping in the wardrobe. Imagine how small Steve Jobs wardrobe must have been with only his staple turtlenecks and new balance trainers! If you can’t remember when you wore it last or don’t have a good enough reason to keep it (like an interview suit, wedding guest dress etc) then it’s time to get rid
2) Resell
This leads us nicely onto what you can do with your unwanted items! Get on Facebook Marketplace, Vinted, Depop or eBay and list your “good condition” clothing.
As the world becomes more conscious of pollution and fashion waste, more and more people are looking to buy and sell second hand fashion. Upload images of what items you no longer want, set your price, and wait for someone to snap it up! Now you’ve created a bit of space in the wardrobe you could always treat yourself to a “new” piece too! You can often get brand new or barely worn items for more half of the RRP as well as some great worn items with plenty of life left in them. Not only is it good on the environment it’s also great on the wallet.
With Niftiee you can save extra cash on buying second hand clothing from PreWorn, get an extra 10% off as a Niftiee Deal Lover! If you’re looking for something a bit more up market, you can also check out Selfridges new scheme, RESELFRIDGES. They accept your preloved designer accessories and in return you can get a gift card to spend in store on something you’ll love. With Niftiee you can also save an extra 4% on any purchases at Selfridges.
3) Repair
Has your favourite pair of trousers got a rip in them after a wild night out or your cherished designer handbag has a broken strap? Don’t throw them in the bin, repair or repurpose!
You can easily repair a ripped pair of jeans, either add more rips or use patches of old fabric to make your own patchwork pair. A t-shirt with a hole at the bottom can easily be repurposed into a crop top, there’s hundreds of ideas on YouTube and Pinterest to how you can repurpose those slightly damaged clothes!
Did you know luxury brand Louis Vuitton repairs their bags for life?! If you’ve been lucky enough to buy one or even luckier to have been given one and then something has happened to damage it, it can feel like a disaster! Just book an appointment and see if you bag can be fixed, you could also try the Handbag Clinic for quotes on other luxe brands as well as shoes!
4) Rewear
This is the easiest of the 5 R’s, just simply wear the clothes you’ve already got! Some Hollywood celebs might not be seen dead in the same outfit twice, but they have basically unlimited money, and people like the Kardashian’s even make some money back on selling their once iconic worn outfits!
The normal people like you and the team at Niftiee just don’t have access to this unlimited outfit budget, (we wish we did sometimes) so we just have rewear what we’ve got. That doesn’t mean we can’t come up with new outfits though, there’s hundreds of combinations in our wardrobes we haven’t discovered yet!
5) Recycle
Recycling gives you two options:
1) passing your good quality clothes onto a friend or the charity shop for someone else to enjoy
2) giving unwearable clothes to companies or centres to be recycles safely and as environmentally friendly as possible
If you and your loved ones are the same size or have growing children, it’s great to share pieces that still have plenty of life in them. Why not let your friends have a rummage through your clothes before you send them away. Once your loved ones have a good look you can give away anything that’s still good quality to your local charity shop, you can even donate a bag of wearable clothing in Niftiee partners TK Maxx stores to help them raise money for cancer research.
H&M also offer a clothing drop off service, but they’ll take any fabric items, their business partner then sorts them into 3 sections: clothing for the second hand clothing market, clothing/fabric that can be repurposed and fabric that can be used for other things like shredding it for household insulation material! Not only do H&M take your own fabric good they even give you a thank you voucher worth £5 off items in their store! Add that to the 9% saving from your Niftiee account and you are onto a winner! It’s easy to make your wardrobe more eco friendly just by following those 5 fashion R’s and we can all make our fashion choices in a more sustainable way.
