Fashion Advice
Playing the style stakes is always tricky when you lack confidence and haven’t yet worked out your best vibe. It can result in feeling insecure about the advice you’re getting or overhearing, or even if it’s worth listening to. But just as fashion trends come and go, so does the advice. There’s a bit of advice that was doing the rounds for years, but you don’t hear it these days. It was only a short time ago that stylists around the world were spruiking it and it turns out to be the absolute worst fashion advice ever.
It went like this. “Here is one bit of advice you can’t do without! (We all should stop listening right there.) If you haven’t worn a piece of clothing for 2 years, throw it out.”
Well perhaps some Save the Planet enthusiasts (aren’t we all?) didn’t fall for this one. But many did. Long before Marie Kondo hit the million-view mark on Youtube, fashionistas were being advised to get rid of anything they hadn’t worn over 2 seasons. The real reason, we suspect, was simply to keep us all shopping and keeping fast fast fashion ticking over.
It’s the kind of thinking that led us away from the olden days of saving our best clothes to be worn to church on a Sunday, our “Sunday best”. While few of us are still going to church on Sundays, it’s definitely the kind of advice designed to get everyone changing our outfits as fast as we can change our minds.
And what goes with it? Waste, of course. So – Much – Waste.
Now that the reality has hit, with books, docos, podcasts and blogs shedding light on what the heck is really going on with fashion waste and the damage it is doing to our good planet, it would take a very brave person to proffer such a style hack. It’s the same kind of advice as a “bum steer”. The extent of fashion pollution and the huge masses of discarded clothing spilling over from landfill is indeed disturbing.
Many of us stopped, or slowed down our individual rates of churn. And while this is not true for everyone, what is true is that almost everyone is now thinking about it at least.
Thrifted items used to be ONLY for people on a budget. No longer. Vintage used to be for those with quirky or more “eccentric” tastes. Vintage is no longer merely quirky. It’s a thing. Huge, in fact. Thankfully, not only have we curbed what we throw out, we are a lot more careful about how we throw.
Recycling, upcycling and repurposing are key to making a difference. They’re fun and thought provoking too. Exquisite high-end or high-brow vintage pieces are swooned over. Unusual pieces or just plain comfy ones from previous year’s are valued. And while mass-produced fashion pieces are still popular, they’re hardly considered collectors’ pieces. They’re “disposable”, and that’s the problem.
If anyone tries that worst piece of fashion advice on you, we recommend that you serve it right back up to them. Along with a solid piece of environmental advice: “Good planets are hard to find.”
Try focussing on good fashion advice.
Or, check out Margot Robbie in her vintage gown on the Red Carpet at the Oscars….
Featured Image: Diego Sanchez, Unsplash
