Hiya!

So How’s your week been?

Mad, frantic, or chilled and relaxing?

Seems to be you are in one camp or another with lockdown!
I do envy my friends who get to lie in, sunbathe without being interrupted or having water poured on them by a 2 year old who has discovered the joys of a watering can and a paddling pool. It must be like being on sabbatical.

Although I do know they are also bored, fed up of Groundhog Day style mornings, with everything on repeat and actually craving work.
Whereas my days are an endless juggle of entertaining two children whilst trying to work in between nap, bedtimes and TV moth moments.

Thank god for Paw Patrol!

Anyways, sorry, the waffle has started early….this is not meant to be me talking about my kids and life at home as a working mum.

I get so excited with the thought of conversation (even though most are in my head!) I get carried away. Although I’m not going to lie I did warn you about this in the first blog!

Sorry….Right, back in the room.

So last week we talked about your wardrobe and how actually making friends with it is the step forward in breaking yourself out of the style rut.

I hope you enjoyed reading that one, my aim is that through these blogs you are getting a small insight into me and why I do what I do and my passion for clothes, people and wardrobes!

One of my services is a Wardrobe Edit and it is one I thoroughly enjoy. After a chat about your style, colouring etc we go through your wardrobe, editing (the clue is in the title) all of your pieces, taking out the ones that are not right, exploring alternative options of ones that are and making a plan of what to add to make you and your wardrobe BBF’s.

Of the unwanted items they are bagged up and you guessed it, taken to the charity shop.

One thing I have always been is an avid raider of is charity shops and I will most likely encourage you as a client to consider looking in there for your new desired items – I mean, I even offer a charity shop personal shopping service!

I find them a treasure trove, and I have mentioned this on my Instagram, the thrill of finding a hidden gem amongst the tat.

Charity shops vary from area to area and so does their stock, so shop around, you can find quality basic knits, endless denim (where someone has already done the hard part for you and aged them beautifully) and one off dresses that were bought for an event, never wore again and donated in a latest clearout all for a very reasonable price.

It’s full circle –  In short the easy science of it, charity shops save you money and the support the environment – win, win.

There is a flip side to this.

According to retail and trading director Roy Clark as quoted in Grazia magazine, what is being donated to the UK’s 10,000 charity shops is simply more than they can handle, with Barnardo’s alone receiving over 100,000 bags a week.

One reason being over the past 10 years or so we have become victims to the ‘Fast Fashion’ premise. Quick, cheap and easy items to wear once or twice then bin or give to the charity shop.

An example is when you look at over the 2018 Christmas period alone we spent £3.5bn on clothes for the season, think of all that sparkle just sat in a wardrobe waiting to thrown out or never worn again.

In 2016, we consumed 1,130,000 tonnes of clothes in the UK alone and only kept it for an average of 2.2 years.

Whilst according to the Times, Britons binned clothes worth £12.5 billion in 2017 as the rise of “throwaway” fashion led to 300,000 tonnes of textiles ending up in landfill.

Those are scary statistics in terms of the environment and the waste that is being piled into the ground, let alone the impact the rise of fast fashion now seems to be having on global warming.

When you think about the quick, cheap and easy items you have hanging or folded in your wardrobe, would you say that they were well made?

So many of the items we buy are so cheap and their quality so poor that even if you did donate to the charity shop it is unlikely to benefit them!

Which is why a large amount of it ends up in landfill, so you see its a vicious cycle really.

We as consumers hoover up the cheap quick fix clothes, which batter our world’s climate, then wear for a bit before ultimately ending up in landfill and causing even more damage to the world.

Now I don’t mean to sound like an eco warrior here.

That is NOT me at all.

I am as much a victim of buying cheaper fashion as and when I can afford because it’s nice to get new things (my H&M delivery is due to arrive as I type and I’m so excited!), I like fashion and I cannot afford the similar items from higher end more eco-friendly brands.

What I am trying to say is that I think we can all change our behaviours and attitudes towards this almost constant urge for a new look or high fashion item which will last 5 minutes in style and quality.

Thankfully a lot of high street retailers are shaping up and becoming more and more eco-conscious at an affordable price. (Smug face – part of my order is from the Concious range!)

Even Zara at the end of last year launched their Join Life eco edit which is a HUGE step forward for that brand.

Having worked for Zara as Visual Merchandiser I have seen first hand the ridiculously fast turn around of fashion items that come through on a daily basis and the vast amount that go unsold or effectively to waste.

We can all make small steps towards helping this situation.

So if through my waffle and eco-championing it has made you think a bit more about the amount you throw away vs buy then writing this and getting Mr N to proof read it several times has been worth it!

Even if you reduced that online shopping basket for 10 items to a more conservative 4 or 5 then that is a win for the environment and your bank balance!