Making Fast Fashion Sustainable-Circular fashion principles for your wardrobe

It’s no secret that I’m a luxury lover. But the truth is, even a lot of luxury products are by definition fast fashion.

For those who may not know, fast fashion is the rapid production and distribution of trendy, seasonal pieces to the market.

While we typically think of fast fashion applying only to brands like Shein, Temu and Amazon; fast fashion can apply to any company that employs a strategy of inundating the market with trendy goods.

I bring this up because there’s a lot of rhetoric about how bad fast fashion is (especially around economy brands), but I don’t think it’s helpful to view it in such black and white terms.

The issue with fast fashion from a sustainability perpective isn’t that it exists; the issue is that it creates avenues for over consumption.

The question I’ve been thinking bout lately is: how can we slow fast fashion down, while still remaining relevant and trendy?

Especially as a fashion, beauty and lifestyle content creator, I want to be conscious of my own contributions to over consumption.

In today’s blog, I will share with y’all 5 ways I’ve found to make fast fashion( from luxury to economy brands ) more sustainable for myself and for you.

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Table of Content

Recycle with Trashie

I’m so fascinated by circular economies and fashion is clearly no exception.

With circular fashion, we focus on maxing out the usage of fashion pieces within our community while introducing as few new items as possible.

This helps to slow down the amount of clothing that’s entering our landfills (you can read more on that here).

But a lot of times as a consumer, we don’t know what to do with our old clothes. We might not have the bandwidth to sell them, or maybe they are truly worn out and beyond repair.

This is where programs like Trashie steps in.

Trashie allows you to buy “Take Back” bags, which you fill up with your old textiles and garments. Then you ship it back with their pre paid label and collect Trashie Cash that you can redeem for credit at certain stores or even on hotel and travel experiences .

Meanwhile, Trashie takes your used garments and sorts out what can be reused and what needs to be recycled. Through their meticulous measures, the vast majority of items sent into Trashie are able to be folded back into the circular fashion economy in a meaningful way.

Trashie is doing such impactful work bridging the gap between fashion and sustainability and I deeply feel that they should be your first stop when you need to clear out space in your closet.

What I love even more though is that Trashie is building an active community, which is key to sustanible fashion. The community is free and anyone can join in. Click this link here to get started today.

Two fast fashion suits from Just Fab. I like the material that these are constructed from. They hold up when being launder and can be repaired.

Repair what you have

I’m a huge fan of recycling, but repairing is probably the best way to bring sustainability to fast fashion.

We often think of doing this in terms of luxury items. For example, I have a few Louis Vuitton bags that I have either gotten repaired professionally of have done myself.

This is a no brainer for most of us because we have invested a lot in these pieces, so it often feels wasteful to no repair when we can.

But by repairing these items, we’re also keeping them out of the consumption part of our circular fashion loop and practicing sustainanblity.

We can do the same with many of our more economic fashion pieces as well.

I have clothes that I bought from fast fashion brands back in 2009 that I still wear today. The quality of these items aren’t the best but because I have learned to repair my clothes first before donating them, I have been able to extend the usability of these items and reduce my own consumption.

If you don’t know how to repair your own cloths, I suggest purchasing a repair kit like this one and maybe a sewing machine like this if you’re feeling brave and watching a tutorial like this one to get started.

Reuse by consignment and thrift shopping

Consignment and thrift shopping is one of my favorite things to do– in fact, it’s how I built up my luxury closet.

When I’m looking to fill in gaps for my wardrobe, I now turn to thrifting first. By shopping consignment and thrifted items first, I’m pulling from clothing that’s already in circulation, limiting the creation of new waste.

At the same time, there are so many intresting pieces that you can find when you go thrifting.

Vintage pieces have my heart and I love styling these to give them a new and modern take.

You’ll also find a lot of modern fast fashion items in thrift and consignment stores nowadays too. A lot of people hate this, but I personally don’t have a problem with it.

If the garment is in usable condition or can be up-cycled and is something that you would wear, then I think its much better that it ended up at the local thrift store and in your hands instead of the landfill.

Fast fashion from thrift stores may not feel as unquie as a vintage or designer score, but if you like it then I think it’s still a great find!

For some folk, consignment shopping online is a much better experience for them. If that’s the case for you, consider these retailer: ThredUp, Poshmark, Fashionphile

Having a focus towards circular fashion has forced me to really start to understand my personal style and what works best for me

Reduce your shopping budget

This is the hardest actionable step for me because I lean more toward the maximalist side of things. But the reality is reducing overall waste means that I have to reduce what I’m buying/receiving.

This is extremely hard with my job being in fashion and beauty. But I found that creating a reasonably shopping budget and limiting the amount of partners I will work with has really helped.

I budget by category. Since its easier to accumulate a lot more from economy brands and markets like Amazon and Temu, I give myself a much small budget in this area that limits me to only a few new sets in a year.

Luxury pieces a more self limiting for me because of their price range. But I still give myself budget so that I can better track what I’m buying.

When it comes to accessories like handbags and shoes, I try to follow a 1 in 1 out policy (heavy on the try here). Since I really love the collection that I have built, I’m not so keen on selling off what I already have. Sticking to this has really slowed down my consumption.

If you’re someone who wants to cycle through your wardrobe pieces more frequently thought, renting your fashion might be a better bet for you.

While I haven’t personally used a rental service yet, I have covered it a bit in this post here. I think that rental services are an incredible way to reduce your over all consumption and waste when it comes to fashion and I’m excited to try them out in the future.

What I appreciate most about this two piece suit is that it’s well constructed. it won’t just fall apart on me and I can wear this time and time again.

Buy quality peices

As much as I want to stay within a closed fashion loop, the reality is sometimes we have to buy new. And sometimes we want to buy new.

I think that’s okay. The focus should be on reducing our need to buy new, not necessarily removing that need or want altogether.

When I do buy new, I look for quality pieces that can be tailored and repaired if needed. This ensures that my garment can have the longest use life possible.

A lot of the times, we assume that quality garments can only come from designer stores. But expensive doesn’t mean well made and inexpensive doesn’t mean poorly made.

Instead of looking at price to determine if an item is made well, take a look at the fabric and the stitching.

Does the fabric feel thin and frail? Is it already piling? Is the stitching neat or misaligned? Are the edges frying? Ask yourself these question before you buy if you can.

Regardless of price, if the garment is poorly made, it’s not going to hold up well over the long run.

If you’re shopping online, it’s a bit more difficult to inspect your piece, so instead, I would read through reviews thoroughly.

See what people like and dislike about the piece to determine if it’s going to be something that holds up.

Be sure to shop with sites that offer legitimate reviews as many places will now try to fake reviews to scam you.

While I’m not partnered with them, lately I have been turning to Shoedazzle and their partner Just Fab for my more trendy pieces.

While the material isn’t top quality, the construction has always been decent and I still own many clothing pieces that I’ve bought from them years ago.

Circular fashion is for everyone. We can all find ways to impletment at least one of the principles of circular fashion into our closets.

Final Thoughts

Fast fashion isn’t inherintly unsustainable or evil. It all depends on the choices that we make.

By choosing to reduce our over all consumption habits through setting budgets, purchasing quality constructed garments, repairing when needed and purchasing second hand, we can still be active and participate in trends while remaining more eco conscious.

Having easy tools such as Trashie “Take Back” bags also gives us an easy pathway to clear out necessary space in our closets without adding to the looming issues of textiles in landfills.

I strongly believe that there is place for everyone in circular fashion– from the trendy maximalist to the revered minimalist, we all have a role in the fashion economy.

By taking some of these actionable steps, we can start to reduce our waste and make this space better for all of us.

If you like conversations like this, take some time to join us over on Instagram, where we chat about beauty, fashion and sustainability all the time. Also don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter!

Ciao!

Love, Monnii Bee