Buy Better – Slow Fashion Tips

Stop Buying Vast Amounts Of Cheap Clothing

As Vivienne Westwood famously said, we all buy too many clothes. Instead, we should ‘Buy less, choose well and make it last.’ We’ve all got into a habit of buying too much. Every new season or special day deserves a new outfit, right? Or every time we have a free afternoon, we should spend it at the shopping centre and see what bargain we can pick up? Pre pandemic at least!

How about we look at buying clothes in a completely different way? How about we only buy what we need? Clothes that we love and will take care of. 

For clothes to last year after year, they have to be well made. Check the seams to make sure there aren’t any gaps. Are the buttons sewn on tightly? Does the fabric sit well without pulling? It’s a good idea to make sure it won’t look out of place next year. Is it a trend piece that everyone has just started wearing and you feel like you need to have it?

I used to have a thing for handbags and would spend loads of money on bags that I hardly ever wore. I decided to search out a bag I could wear every day. Nowadays I hardly carry any other bag because this one is beautiful and does the job. Compared to a few years previous when I bought all the pretty bags, it means I have less, but I enjoy wearing it more.

Buying better doesn’t have to mean spending more money.

It just means taking the time to make sure you will wear it. A tip is to ask yourself if you will wear it more than 30 times. For more basic clothing, this is a little easier. It’s not difficult to wear your favourite tee for more than 30 times in a few months. I’m hardly ever out of the tee in the photo above!

However, I used to buy fancy shoes and dresses, and it was almost impossible to wear them more than a few times. It just wasn’t in my lifestyle to wear a party dress every week. So for me, buying better could mean purchasing a dress that I can wear more often, either by layering it with other clothes or just one that was less formal. It could also mean buying shoes that I can walk in. Nowadays I buy fewer shoes, but I also buy shoes that look good and are comfortable. The quickest way to fall out of love with shoes is when they hurt your feet!

Fast fashion is often cheaper because the quality is low. It isn’t essential for the retailers to locate the most beautiful fabric or to give the garment workers adequate time to do a thorough job of sewing it together. The designer hasn’t had the time to thoroughly think out the piece. Not every time, it is possible to find pieces that last. But as a whole, you need to be asking yourself questions each time you buy clothing, wherever you buy it.

Fashion can still be used to experiment and be creative, but we don’t need to be buying a basket full of cheap polyester every month to do that. It saves money, in the long run, to buy better the first time – a tip that works across the board, not just in the wardrobe!

For more slow fashion tips, see ethical fashion is borrowing clothes and how to build a conscious wardrobe.