Wardrobe Diary: turning my teenage fashion choices into family heirlooms

What’s the oldest item of clothing in your wardrobe? Do you have hand-me-downs from siblings, parents, grandparents? We often see jewellery as heirlooms to be handed down through generations, but clothes are more ephemeral, and in recent years, more disposable. 

I’ve been taking part in the Slow Fashion Challenge over on Instagram, and several of the prompts have made me think about the clothes that I have hung on to despite numerous wardrobe clearances, and why I have kept certain outfits despite the fact that I am probably not going to wear them again. 

I’ve never been very good at keeping a diary, but while I’ve been searching through my wardrobe for garments to illustrate prompts like “throwback” and “hand-me-down” I’ve realised that my wardrobe acts as a sort of diary. The trends I’ve tried out, the special occasions and impulse buys that have marked my eclectic clothes-buying habits over the years might only be represented by a couple of items of clothing lurking at the back of my closet (ok, fine, I have a separate wardrobe for my “museum”, please don’t judge me) but they are a great reminder of certain times in my life. 

The burgundy velvet jacket I bought in Rokit in Brighton in the mid Nineties reminds me of the tentative steps towards independence I was taking as a teenager: figuring out how to make my monthly clothing allowance and meagre pub-kitchen-pot-scrubbing wages go further by shopping in the Lanes rather than the Churchill Square shopping centre. Spending a Saturday free from the watchful eyes of parents, rummaging for bargains and defiantly making purchases that I secretly hoped would shock when I brought them home. I’m sure my parents found my goth phase pretty funny, but they kept up impressive poker faces, and even my most outlandish ensembles were met with a mild “you look nice”. 

The neon pink top that formed part of my work wardrobe when I was a shop assistant at Cyberdog in Camden Market during my first term at uni also reveals another side to my personality. Folk music loving, quiet and contemplative me, who currently loves an early night, was also a big techno and drum n bass fan! I may not be able to party all night (fuelled only by cheese toasties) any more, but my music tastes are as eclectic as my fashion tastes, and probably always will be. 

The piece of clothing that started off my reflections on being a teenager was a blue knitted top. Originally owned by my aunt, who was a teenager in the Fifties, it was passed on to my Mum, who was a teenager in the Sixties, before making its way into a box of dressing up clothes that my sister and I wore as children. I liberated it when I was a teenager and I’ve been wearing it ever since. I love having a piece of vintage clothing that I know the origin story for, but I also love having something that links me to other members of my family. It’s a great reminder that my mum and aunt were also teenage trendsetters, exploring their personal style and trying to provoke a reaction.

I’ve been thinking back to the clothes I wore as a teenager because 90s trends have come back into fashion recently, and I’ve been reflecting on the evolution of my personal style. I definitely went through a phase where my reactions to my teenage fashion statements were “I wore what??” My viewpoint has changed over the years though, and now I’m proud of teenage me, for wearing whatever the heck she wanted, for occasionally inviting ridicule but working a look regardless, and developing shopping habits that have stuck with me to this day.

I might be delving back into this alternative form of wardrobe diary in the future, so stay tuned!

How to reduce plastic pollution by rethinking the way we wash our clothes

Reducing the amount of plastic we use seems to be top of every eco-conscious agenda at the moment, and with good reason. Whether we’ve been spurred into action by the shocking footage of polluted seas in Blue Planet 2 or by litter in our own communities, there is no denying that our reliance on single-use plastic has grown into a huge problem. While bottle deposit schemes and a return to more easily recycled food packaging like aluminium or glass are all moves in the right direction, it’s easy to overlook another source of plastic pollution; the microfibres from our clothes.

Synthetic fabrics like polyester and elastane are essentially a type of plastic, albeit in a less noticeable form than a drinks bottle or food packaging. When we wash synthetic clothes, microfibres can be washed out of the fabrics and into the oceans, as they are too small to be filtered out at water treatment plants. This article about microfibre pollution in the oceans will give you plenty of in-depth information, if you want to know more.

Even if you prefer to wear natural fibres (I’m not too keen on synthetics as they are not breathable), they will usually be mixed with elastane for stretch garments like underwear, leggings, vest tops or anything figure-hugging. Elastane replaced the latex-based elastic used in the first half of the 20th Century which was notoriously perishable; elastane’s high performance, long-lasting fibres has saved countless people from the embarrassment of a broken knicker elastic!

For a week of my Wardrobe Diary, I focussed on whether my clothes were made from fibres containing plastic, and the results were quite striking. I wear a lot of cosy, stretchy base layers in the winter and these all contain elastane. Quite a few of my vintage dresses and sweaters are polyester, and I’m not keen on the idea of giving up on stretch underwear in order to go plastic free!

Throwing away clothes that contain fibres we’ve come to rely on for their comfort and convenience isn’t a solution, so what can we do instead? A couple of innovative solutions are available; the GuppyFriend and the Cora Ball.

The GuppyFriend is a fabric bag designed to trap microfibres before they leave your washing machine and enter the water supply. A reasonable load of laundry fits comfortably inside, and it doesn’t affect the way the machine washes your clothes.

The Cora Ball is designed to catch fibres as the clothes move around your machine. I haven’t bought one yet as the GuppyFriend seems more suited to my washing needs. The Cora Ball site advises against using in a delicates wash or with strappy tops or tights, but would be great if you are regularly washing fleeces or other fluffy synthetic items.

The idea of developing attachments for the washing machine itself to do the same job has been raised, and I’m sure there are prototypes in the works, but it’s good to be aware of changes we can make now. In the same way that we are all getting used to remembering our cloth shopping bags or reusable water bottles, this is a small change we can make to our regular habits to minimise our negative impact on the environment. It might not be suitable or feasible for every wash, but if we’re washing our Lycra-based sportswear separately anyway, we could probably pop it in a bag first. Every small positive change adds up to a big impact, and this doesn’t require a radical change to habits or lifestyle.

I'm only 33% ethical: the first month of my Wardrobe Diary

Since 1st January 2018 I’ve been keeping a Wardrobe Diary, to get a better idea of whether I’m actually wearing all my clothes or whether I could downsize a bit, and to help me plan future purchases. 

This month, I’ve been working out what sort of information I want to collect and focus on, as well as looking at where my clothes were made and what my ratio of new to secondhand purchases is. I also used the ratings given to clothing brands by Ethical Consumer magazine to assess a week’s worth of outfits and to learn more about the rationale behind these ratings, and what high street brands can do to improve.

At the start of Week 1, I was away on a short holiday, so I’d packed mix-and-match knits and cosy layers so I wouldn’t have to think too much about what I was wearing. I started off recording quite a lot of information, but soon realised that this would be far too time-consuming to do on a daily basis, and I’d need to focus on a particular piece of information each week.

Thinking carefully about what I was wearing every day made me realise I was probably washing outer layers like jumpers far too often, so when I returned from my holiday I planned outfits around clothes I’d already worn that week which weren’t quite ready for a wash. I also made an effort to wear clothes I hadn’t worn for a while, and discovered that a dress I’d ignored for a year was a great addition to my work wardrobe!

For Week 2, I looked at the labels in my clothes to see where they were manufactured, and was quite surprised by the results. I had expected several items from China, India and Bangladesh, but hadn’t expected to find items from Tunisia, Morocco and Romania. The only pieces of clothing made in the UK were either vintage, or made by very new start-ups (or in one case, made by me!). 

I don’t have a problem with fashion being a global industry, and I wouldn’t presume to tell people where they should or shouldn’t work, but I do think that as western consumers we should take a bit more notice when low prices for us come at a huge cost to others. As someone who is paid a good wage and has the freedom to join a union, it is my responsibility to stand with garment workers when they speak out about punishingly long hours or health and safety concerns. Next month, when I look at who made my clothes, I’ll be thinking of ways I can support them.

I kept a record of whether my clothes were new or secondhand for Week 3, trying not to have this in mind when I was planning outfits. I wanted this to be an assessment of an average week, not an attempt to wear as many secondhand clothes as possible (although I might try this as a challenge one week!). The percentage of secondhand clothes I wore was fairly low- only 9 out of 51 items, or 18%. I wonder if this percentage will grow as the weather gets warmer, and I’m not wearing so many base layers (which I don’t buy secondhand)?

As I had been gifted an Ethical Consumer Magazine subscription, which allows me to access their product guides and ratings tables, I used their table of High Street brands to give my outfits an ethical rating for a week. Their ratings system (each brand is given a mark out of 20) takes into account a company’s treatment of workers, animals and the environment, as well as any political affiliations. If you’re interested in finding out more about their ratings system, and the complex international supply chains that they track in order to give an accurate score, I’d highly recommend getting hold of a copy of their September/October 2017 magazine (issue 168). 

I tried to wear mostly brands that were featured on this list for the week, which alerted me to notable exceptions. Brands owned by the former Aurora group - Warehouse, Oasis and Coast, among others - were not featured, nor were River Island or Jaeger. I was dismayed (but perhaps not surprised) by how low a lot of reputable brands scored. It was encouraging to see that ethical initiatives like H&M’s conscious collection merit a higher rating, but it still doesn’t bring them in line with brands that market themselves specifically as ethical. Jersey basics from Thought gain a score of 14.5 out of 20, while a vest top from H&M’s conscious collection would only score 8.5.

My average outfit was only 33% ethical, or scored 6.5 or 7 out of 20. My highest score was given a boost when I wore my Thought leggings; wearing underwear and knitwear from Marks and Spencer contributed to my lowest score.

There are now several resources that help consumers analyse how ethical their wardrobes are: the Not My Style app gives a red, amber or green rating to high street brands, and Fashion Revolution's transparency index rates brands on how much information they reveal about their supply chain. I’m planning to review another week’s worth of outfits according to these different criteria to see what else I can learn.

Other weekly assessments will focus on plastics vs natural fibres, an in-depth look at laundry, and how easy it would be to recycle my wardrobe using current technology, as well as some fun outfit challenges. I’m planning to repeat a 13 week series of weekly observations four times, to see how the changing seasons affect my clothing choices.

If you want to suggest an outfit challenge, leave me a comment or say hi over on Twitter!

New Year, New Project: The Wardrobe Diary

Happy New Year! A huge thank-you to everyone who has read, liked and commented on my blog posts in 2017, it’s been so encouraging to find out that I am making a positive impact. I’m going to continue writing about ethical and sustainable fashion, featuring my upcycling and refashioning projects (and maybe a few fabric-stash-busting new makes as well) and reviewing any interesting panels, talks or exhibitions I go to, but I’m also starting a new project which I might feature here occasionally: The Wardrobe Diary.

I’ve been discovering new ethical brands, switching to second-hand shopping where possible and dreaming up ways I can get more wear out of my clothes, as well as reading about other people’s efforts to make their clothing choices as sustainable as possible. One option is to carefully curate a capsule wardrobe, ensuring every piece is well-made, adaptable and something you’d love to wear again and again. I admire the self-discipline and organisation of this approach, but I just don’t think this is for me.

I enjoyed taking part in Labour Behind the Label's Six Items Challenge last year, choosing five dresses and one cardigan to wear for six weeks. I liked having more of a reason to wear accessories, and having to be more adaptable rather than panicking about finding the “perfect” outfit. I did miss my extensive wardrobe of other clothes though; I love being able to match my clothes to my mood, the weather, or what I’m doing that day. 

I’ve been making considered choices about the new items I add to my wardrobe, and I’d like to think that I’m making a good effort to wear the vast majority of my clothes wherever possible, but in reality am I still playing favourites; wearing the same small selection of things over and over again while other items languish, unloved and unworn? I also like to think that having plenty of clothes means I do less washing, but is that actually true?

As I discovered at The Laundry Pile panel discussion, the way we wash our clothes has a big environmental impact. It can seem that for every careful choice we make about the fabrics we wear, how our clothes are manufactured, how we look after them and what happens to them after we no longer want them, there is a negative impact being made somewhere else. It can seem exhausting and overwhelming, but every small thing we can do to reduce the harmful impact of the fashion industry is important. Unfortunately, my wardrobe choices will probably still have some unwanted impact on the environment, but I want to minimise that as much as possible. And, to be as effective as possible at minimising my environmental impact, I want to really understand it.

The only way I can keep tabs on what I’m actually wearing, how often I’m washing it, and how frequently I add new clothes to my wardrobe or discard old ones is to keep a comprehensive list. I saw some cute log books for recording travels, walks and other adventures on Twitter, and a couple of people remarked how fun it would be to have one for outfits, so I thought I’d create my own! 

Each day I am making notes on my outfit, here is a (probably incomplete) list of the questions I’ve given myself to think about:

• What am I wearing?
• What shops/brands are my clothes from?
• What fabrics are they made from?
• Where were the clothes made?
• Did I buy them new, or secondhand?
• How long have I owned them? 
• Where am I wearing them?
• How has the weather/location influenced my clothing choices?
• What will need a wash at the end of the day? 

At the end of each week, I’ll do a little round-up of what I’ve worn the most and how much washing I’ve done, and at the end of the month I’ll do a more comprehensive overview, looking at the ratio of new clothes to vintage/secondhand items, and I’ll also make a note of any new clothes I buy, as well as any clothes I am planning to get rid of. 

I purchased 17 new-to-me items of clothing in 2017; 11 from sustainable or ethical brands, 3 from charity shops and 3 from vintage shops. I gave away a lot of unwanted clothes at clothes swaps, but picked up 4 items for myself. I also added two pieces of clothing to my wardrobe that I had made from scratch (with materials I already owned), and introduced 10 unworn items back into circulation after refashioning or altering them.

This seems like a high turnover of clothing, so I’ll be interested to see if keeping my wardrobe diary encourages me to wear a wider selection of outfits (maybe to avoid having to make shameful monthly reports?!) or helps me to understand if I’m overestimating my need for certain items. If I discover any fascinating insights I’ll share them here, otherwise it’s a good excuse to take a load of selfies and share outfit photos on Instagram, and to rediscover which clothes I really love. The wonderful thing about having a big wardrobe is being able to wear exciting and imaginative outfits, and I want my clothing choices to stand out for the right reasons.