GUEST POST || Emily from Pre-Loved Podcast

My Sustainable Outfit

My Sustainable Outfit is a series highlighting the different ways we can dress sustainably. The clothes we wear and the way we shop are unique to us. Everyone has a slightly different style and budget. Throughout this series, we hope to inspire that sustainable fashion is available to everyone. Today I am excited to share outfits from Emily Stochl!

Emily is writer and podcaster specialising in vintage fashion, books and slow living. She lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa with her husband and pets. I came across Emily after listening to the fabulous Pre-Loved Podcast. I’d never heard such an inspiration for vintage fashion. Every week Emily chats with a different guest about their style and reasons for buying vintage. She talks to secondhand shop owners, vintage stylists and people who have a genuine love for shopping preloved. As well as talking to people about vintage and thrifting on Pre-Loved Podcast, she also walks the walk and wears mainly preloved clothing. Read on to hear about her style history and favourite stories about her clothing.

Emily Stochl – Pre-Loved Podcast

My love for thrifting really started in college. I found thrifting as an affordable way to scratch a shopping habit. I could treat myself after getting a good grade on a final, or go out shopping for hours with friends without blowing the bank. And I especially loved hitting the thrift stores with my now-husband when we first met our senior year. 

We would hit multiple thrift stores in one night, talking, laughing, and telling stories through each aisle. Think about it, the thrift store is ripe with stuff like that CD you couldn’t stop listening to at age 8, or butterfly clips and jelly sandals, or a painting of an old barn that happens to be in your grandma’s hometown. Thrift stores are a great place to get to know someone and their stories and to collect amazing memories of your own. 

This carried on for several years. I loved building up a closet of one-of-a-kind vintage dresses, and a record cabinet full of scratchy but loveable vinyl. When I started my first office job, I was able to outfit a full corporate appropriate wardrobe just by scouring the thrift stores. When we bought our first house, we filled it with vintage furniture, thrifted books, eclectic pottery, and a cupboard full of thrifted dish and glassware. Thrift helped me create a warm and happy life. 

And then it became about more than just my quirky style or my love of a good story. I started to learn that shopping second-hand can be about both style and ethics. First I watched The True Cost documentary (available on Netflix) and learned about the human rights atrocities that are going on in the fashion industry across the world. It sat heavy on my heart. Then I read Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth Cline, and I realized that cheap fashion has totally turned consumption upside down. It hasn’t always been like this — styles changing so fast, closets stuffed to the bin, garbage bags of clothes headed to the charity shop — or worse — the garbage can each season. 

Sustainable and ethical passion became a major passion of mine I started to read, watch and listen to as many resources as I could possibly consume. Specifically, I got really into interview-style podcasts. And there are some amazing resources out there on ethical and sustainable fashion — it’s really an innovative space with loads of creative people. 

But I couldn’t find a podcast show specifically dedicated to vintage and thrift, which was how I got into this whole thing in the first place. I gave myself a few months to stew on the idea, and then Pre-Loved Podcast was born! More on that to come… for now, I’d love to walk you through some of my favorite pre-loved pieces. 

These days, I would say 90% of my closet is preloved, and the rest is from ethical brands. I love a good story about a preloved piece — that’s why I interview the world’s best thrifters after all! Here are some of my favorites from my closet. 

I’ve had this flowery boho skirt for going on 10 years now. I bought it on a trip to San Diego and I still wear it to this day as much as when I first got it. Recently I visited the Minneapolis Vintage Market and I picked up this precious 1970s boho top with two different kinds of hand-stitched ribbon and puffed sleeves.

My father-in-law has owned a restaurant in a small town near where my husband and I live, and two years ago my husband was able to join his dad in the family business. One day a good friend of mine found an old tshirt from the restaurant and she snagged it as a gift for me! My father-in-law thinks it’s from the early 1980s.

When my friend opened her first brick and mortar vintage store, this orange dagger-collared 1970s dress was one of the first things I bought from her. It has darling little daisys all over it and it’s one of my prized possessions. Recently the old metal zipper on the dress broke, but no matter, I took it to a tailor who replaced it with a more durable zipper so the dress will still last me years and years!

This red boho top is paper thin and perfect a hot summer day. I’m the third person in my circle of friends to own it, and it came my way via a clothing swap we did together. I picked up this denim skirt at a flea market last summer. I’m in Rotterdam in this photo. My husband and I did a month-long backpacking trip through Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands and this denim skirt was my go-to again and again when I was living out of just a backpack. 

I love this darling, blue gingham dress. It’s a simple, lightweight tshirt shaped dress, but it has these amazing puff sleeves that add such a fun vintage element. I feel like summer every time I wear this dress, and even wore it on my birthday in July.

So, if you love these kinds of stories about the vintage and thrifted pieces that mean the world to people, you will love Pre-Loved Podcast. Each week I interview a new style maven about their dazzling preloved finds. There are about 40 episodes available to-date (downloadable on your podcatcher of choice) and I’ve interviewed vintage sellers, fashion stylists, flea market founders, sustainability advocates, bloggers, and the like about why they choose preloved first. I hope you’ll tune in, and follow along with my fashion adventures at @brumeanddaisy. Chat soon! – Emily

Find Emily Online!

Pre-Loved Podcast

(The link above goes to Emily’s blog where you can find all the info from each podcast episode and also listen to it. However, the podcast is also avaliable, where you usually listen to your podcasts!)

Brume & Daisy Blog

The French Press Newsletter

Instagram