What does it mean to build a sustainable wardrobe, and is it possible for men? There are always ways you can make a sustainable wardrobe that doesn’t involve throwing out everything you own and buying from reputable retailers with sustainable materials. In fact, that is probably the last thing you should do.
But if you are looking to make a change in how you purchase your clothing to make better, more eco-friendly choices, these tips can be a great place to start.
Avoid Fast Fashion
Fast fashion is often associated with women’s fashion; however, men’s fashion can frequently be involved in fast fashion choices. There is always a new style, budget clothing retailer and trend hitting the market and as such, these items can often be made from cheaper fabrics using processes and products that harm the environment, and that’s before you broach the working conditions people are put under to make this cheap throwaway clothing.
Choose Sustainable Materials
As we mentioned above, the last thing you should do is throw away your current clothing to make peace with more sustainable options. But moving forward, a commitment to only buying items made from sustainable materials such as bamboo, cotton, Merino wool, and linen, for example, can help you create a better wardrobe for the environment than artificial materials. Think cotton t-shirts, men’s wool sweaters, linen trousers, etc., for purchases you make in the future.
Donate Old Items
When you find you have items you no longer like to wear or fit you, donating them can allow them to still be helpful to someone else while avoiding ending up in a landfill, taking many years to fully break down and release chemicals used to produce them into the environment.
Pass them to family and friends, donate to goodwill stores, or give them to strangers or homeless shelters who can put them to good use.
30 Wear Rule
A phrase that is popular in fashion right now to determine if the new clothing purchase is going to be sustainable is how often you will be wearing it. Will you wear it more than 30 times? If you will, then it is a more sustainable choice; if not, it might not be the best purchase right now.
So this could mean that you buy a new jacket or work, implying that it will likely be worn over the next year more than 30 times. But a pair of shorts you will likely wear for a two-week vacation won’t be as good value unless you plan frequent vacations or can commit to wearing them around the house.
Rethink Your Wardrobe
What this means is that you need to rethink how you approach fashion and what you wear. Whilst it’s good to have lots to wear for different occasions, too many clothes can cause decision fatigue or cause you to build a collection of items you no longer wear.
Take everything you own, and instead of viewing them as individual pieces, build outfits. How many outfits can you make from what you have, and what choices do you have? You will probably have more outfit choices than you think, which means you can restyle current pieces rather than buy new ones. If you view your purchases as whole outfits over individual pieces, then you can determine how they will fit into your wardrobe and reduce how much you buy.