Searching for Sustainable Fashion

This has been on my mind recently, especially given that all of our lives have been turned around and for some, even upside down. Lately, I seem to be having conversations and thoughts around how to redeploy any and all items in my lifestyle. From food to fashion, the quest and question is always, how can I get longer shelf life out of this or that? In some cases, food more specifically, I don’t know that I want beans or carrots, again, for the third time this week. However, in these times of budget consciousness and lack of ease for shopping, even if Instacart is my new bestie since March, I just can’t let the food go bad. Our motto is use everything and be creative when necessary. Some of our greatest meals lately have been by adding fresh greens or hard boiled eggs into the mix.

What all this means to me and maybe you, is that I have become a smarter shopper. By default of the times, of course. I like to think that I came to be more sensible and budget conscious on my own however there is something to be said about something being completely out of your hands. However we have arrived at our new found frugalness, we WILL embrace this “new us “ by looking at our lifestyle as a whole. Where can we maximize and maybe minimize?

I recently stumbled upon a report while searching sustainability.  I actually googled, “how can I be more sustainable in my personal and professional life”. I wanted to find a way to incorporate sustainability into my clothing line process. The results came back almost at an alarming volume of site searches however the one site that resonated was Thredup.com

I felt after reading the page like, hold on, “I can do some of those things and share these easy options”. In their study of single use outfits in 2019, 208 million pounds of waste was generated by single use outfits. Some examples of single use outfits are Wedding Events, Music Festival, School Dance, Holiday Parties. They included numbers in the millions for each category but I won’t turn this into an academic paper and list here! Millions, was what stood out to me and that’s a lot of waste, obvi. I never really gave consideration to how many outfits for “one time buys”  I admittedly, STILL have in my closet. Such as the time ( it wasn’t just one) I wanted to fly to Ohio in something more comfortable and “plane” appropriate. I cannot tell you without shame, how many outfits I purchased JUST to fly. My”one time buys” consist of many unimportant yet what I considered as new outfit worthy life events. The girls happy hour, a friend’s birthday, not mine, theirs.. Yet, I had to have a new outfit to celebrate them. 

All of the above is to point out and perhaps emphasize that the need for convertible clothing, transition clothing is more and more important, perhaps more than ever before. For Work in Process , Grace Collection, the goal was to have clothing that could take you from A to Z or better stated these days,  Activity to Zoom Videos! Wearing your WFH (work from home) outfit converts from super comfy to super sexy with one shoe change! Suddenly those “one time buys “  become your investment staple clothes! Some of my favorite work from home outfits have been something that I can lounge around zooming through my day and then when the whistle blows at the end of the day, I can throw on a necklace and maybe heels. If I am ambitious or feeling date nightish with My Scientist and I am ready for a romantic stay at home dinner ( because where else are we going in a quarantine), my outfit is a no wardrobe change, just a shoe switch and maybe a different accessory. 

Ah sigh, sustainable shopping comes in all forms, at least if we consider transferable clothing, we are trying! My goal for the rest of 2020 is to convert my closet to staples that make sense. Sustainable staples such as transferable clothing. I am not committing to no more shopping ( oh goodness) , I am committing to shopping brands that allow my lifestyle to overlap with my leisure wear more efficiently. Efficiently stylish becomes elegantly stylish.