Elly from Take It Up Wear It Out // My Sustainable Outfit

GUEST POST 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. This week Elly from Take It Up Wear It Out has shared a favourite sustainable outfit and her shopping habits and history. Elly is a professional dressmaker and self-confessed vintage fashion enthusiast. Her blog is a wealth of information with sewing tutorials and well researched sustainable fashion tips. 

I’ve always loved shopping secondhand; growing up in Brighton and scouring the lanes for vintage bargains meant that my pocket money went further than it would have on the high street! I’ve enjoyed the thrill of the chase ever since, and I love wearing clothes that have a story behind them. I’ve amassed a pretty extensive wardrobe, filled with vintage treasures and charity shop bargains, high street impulse buys and carefully selected wardrobe staples, as well as a wonderful selection of hand-me-downs from friends who want their old clothes to go to a good home!

Shopping sustainably as a deliberate choice crept up on me slowly, in some ways, and dramatically in others. I started to find the fast fashion clothes on offer uninspiring and didn’t like the fabrics they were made from. Shopping secondhand or from independent designers meant that I had better access to more interesting and unique clothes.

Starting my blog, Take It Up Wear It Out, made me reflect on my wardrobe and what it said about me in a number of ways, and I stopped shopping on the high street altogether. Reading up on the Rana Plaza factory collapse and the work that Fashion Revolution and Labour Behind the Label were doing, it was suddenly obvious to me that, as a dressmaker, turning a blind eye to garment worker exploitation overseas while demanding fair wages for myself was deeply hypocritical. I try to ensure that everything I buy is as kind to people and the planet as possible; I am by no means perfect but I feel it’s important to try my hardest to live by my principles.

This top was from a thrift shop in Camden called Episode which sadly no longer exists; loose and silky is perfect for summer! I love the properties of silk as a fabric, but I don’t know if I would buy it new anymore; I’m desperately hoping that cruelty-free, environmentally friendly alternatives will be widely available soon.

I swapped an item of clothing I no longer wanted for this skirt on Vinted and added pockets to it as part of a blog post tutorial. I think it’s really important to see clothes as things that can evolve with us; mass-produced garments aren’t made specifically for us but we can get more wear out of them by altering them to suit our needs.

This belt is from TK Maxx, back when I used to shop on the high street. I don’t agree with the way fast fashion brands operate, but I haven’t thrown away the clothes I bought from them. Adding more clothes to landfill is not a sustainable solution; I plan to wear my less thoughtful purchases until they wear out, and then look for replacements that are more in line with my values.

I like to support brands that are doing the right thing wherever I can, but I don’t just buy from them because of their credentials, I buy from them because I love their products. I am obsessed with Po-Zu’s Piñatex shoes, but their canvas vegan sneakers are just as good. With a comfy insole made from coconut fibre, these shoes are perfect for me when I have to be on my feet all day.

My sunglasses are from W.R.Yuma, 3D printed from recycled car dashboards! I am really excited to see the incredible innovations that small, forward-thinking brands are coming up with, it’s encouraging to see them re-thinking traditional approaches to fashion and coming up with fantastic products.

I love all my clothes but I don’t need to own as many as I do; it’s easy to feel dissatisfied with ill-fitting mass-produced fast fashion, and consequently buy more than we need, in search of the elusive “perfect” garment. Rediscovering the value in beautifully designed, carefully made and properly fitting clothes can be good for our wellbeing and our wallets.

To read more of Elly’s writing – Take It Up Wear It Out

You can also connect with her on Instagram and Twitter.

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