MY SUSTAINABLE SALE PICKS

Posted by Mamma See Mamma Do 6/26/2019

MY SUSTAINABLE SALE PICKS

I really have made a concerted effort to stop buying fast fashion and turn my clothing choices 100% sustainable, ethical, reused and preloved. This is going better than I expected. It's stopped me looking daily on Zara and H&M websites and got me deleting my ASOS wishlist (apart from anything that fits my sustainable brief including their Marketplace). I find it much easier to enjoy looking at Instragram without feeling the need to click on affiliate links and thus feel forever tempted to hit the checkout button. Yes I will be wearing and featuring my past fast fashion buys as they are already in my wardrobe and I have no desire to get rid and add to the wastage. I am just continually horrified when the sales come around at the amount of surplus clothes being offered (sometimes items that have only just recently been released in recent collections). I think I'm fed up of the attitude of the big guns when the whole world is talking about saving the planet. It seems like it was a big deal for them a while back when they were feeling the heat with the release of documentaries and press articles berating their practises, but not a lot seems to have changed.

When talking to friends about sustainable and ethical brands , talk often turns to the expense of such items. Granted, more often than not, when you take the sustainable route you will find that the cost per item is higher than if you're shopping in your local high street.

However, I think it is worth the extra outlay in most cases. Sustainable and ethical clothing prices will inevitably come down the more people choose to shop this way, much like we found with organic foodstuffs. Let's put it this way - the cheaper, faster and lower quality way of manufacturing is always going to be more cost efficient to the consumer but not of any benefit to our planet.

Some of the reasons for higher costs to the consumer can be:

Sustainable materials cost more whereas synthetic is easier and cheaper to produce.

Fair labour will be more expensive as they are paying their workforce what they should be paid rather than underpaying. The item needs to be more expensive to the consumer thus allowing a fairer wage to the workforce.

High marketing costs to get their products out there in the marketplace and convince the consumer to go for the sustainable/ethical/organic option.

These clothes are made with higher quality (and more costly and hard to come by materials) to aid longevity. Think about it though - yes you are buying a more expensive product but this product is more likely to stay in your wardrobe a whole lot longer than the poorly made alternative. Think of these items as more investment friendly.

Ethical and organic materials cost more to import thus the shipping costs will be passed on to the consumer through the cost of the clothing.

Economies of scale - the ethical brands are making a smaller batch of items due to their commitment to reducing waste and a lot of the times they want to concentrate on the quality rather than the quantity they can produce. Therefore every area concerning sustainable clothing will be far more expensive to them than the high street big boys who are producing clothing on an unimaginable and unsustainable level.

So what I wanted to concentrate on in this blog post are the sustainable sales (clothing only on this one, shoes will come next). Let's forget the inordinate amount of very cheap sale items being offered by the high streets due to their over production and high amount of collections being released every year (and most of it then ending up on the sale rails a couple of months later) and let me try and tempt you to buy higher quality items whilst in the sale. These come down to roughly the same as a full price item in a high street store. (I've added a few of my favourites from various brands). Items from brands you may not have considered beforehand because of the cost implication. This is also giving a little bit of brand awareness and illustrating the wealth of choice out there. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. It's about discovery and finding out what is out there. Because there WILL be brands for your budget and your taste. Please don't dismiss sustainable clothing as boring and for the privileged 1%. Yes, in some cases the sale price being offered by some brands are still higher than some of us would be wanting to spend and sometimes the reduced price isn't a massive price cut, but try and look at the bigger picture - Buy Less Buy Better!!

LF MARKEY

MY SUSTAINABLE SALE PICKS

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