Going Green: Buy less, choose it well and make an item last

In total, 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon emissions come from the global fashion industry annually.

While fashion weeks happen across several capital cities every year, there’s a big movement from fashionistas to reduce the amount we buy. The late, great Vivienne Westwood started “buy less, choose well, make it last” as a movement to consume less and where Dame Vivienne lead, plenty fashionistas followed.

Tiffanie Darke is the former editor of the Sunday Times style magazine and she started a “Rule of 5” campaign, which encourages the sustainable and conscious style lover, to only buy five items a year.

That’s just five purchases in an entire twelve-month period. There aren’t any rules what they should be, so from shoes, to bags to jackets you can take your pick.

If you decide to give it a go, there are a few things to ensure success.

Firstly, we only use around 20 percent of the items that are in our wardrobes so give yours a good and thorough clean out first, make sure you’re keeping only the items you’ll wear. You can sell the rest on Vinted or Thrift+, the preloved fashion website aiming to end fashion waste.

It’s worth thinking about what you’ve had on your list to buy but also think about what season it is when you start your challenge. There’s no point starting in the summer and buying five things in the first few months then realising you need more jumpers or a jacket for winter so try and spread your purchases across the seasons and months. It’s worth making sure whatever you purchase goes with what you already own too.

If the challenge isn’t for you, or if you’re already only buying pre-loved clothes, it’s worth finding brilliant fashion author Lucy Siegle’s book To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out The World.

Think about wearing what we have more often too. I’m busy and don’t always want to have to contemplate what to wear so I often wear the same clothes for a few days consecutively. It might sound odd but Steve Jobs was never out of a black roll neck and President Barack Obama wore a navy blue or grey suit every day so he freed up his brain to make big decisions rather than consider what to wear. Don’t be afraid to develop your own ‘uniform’ for work and if you WFH, there’s nothing wrong with wearing the same thing for a few days so long as still clen.

According to the Hot or Cool Institute, we all need to reduce the amount of fashion we’re buying in order for the industry to lower its emissions and help keep global warming to 1.5C.