Where do you stand on pre-loved clothing? Have you always been a vintage vixen? Or is it still the final frontier of fashion for you?
Over recent years, many of us have drastically changed our perspective on pre-loved. It’s now very cool to care about where your clothes come from.
It’s a sobering fact that global emissions from textile production annually are more than the carbon footprint of all international flights. We’re all making changes towards a more sustainable life, and clothing is a vital part of that.
With eBay sponsoring Love Island, big brands launching their own preloved marketplaces and even A-listers re-wearing pieces, second-hand clothes are now cooler than ever.
There are so many reasons to embrace mindful dressing, from saving the planet to saving our wallets.
For a while now, I’ve adopted the philosophy of buying far less and better quality. Thinking carefully through how new pieces will slot into my wardrobe, eliminating impulse purchases and sale items (unless its something I already wanted), and making places like Depop, Vestiare Collective and Vinted my first port of call when I need something.
We all still want to have fun with fashion, but we can do it in a way that’s a little kinder to the earth.
If anything, taste, personal style, and being able to combine pieces are becoming more important as fashion gets less homogenous.
High-quality products become more accessible- I’ve certainly been able to purchase things that would normally be out of my price range. The focus has moved away from quantity and onto quality, which is such a good thing.
There’s also nothing like scoring a total bargain. My best buys have included a leather Gucci pencil skirt for £60 – which would have been over £300 brand new – and a classic cream silk shirt from Mulberry for £15. It’s quite a thrill when you score an amazing piece for pennies!
This is a massive turnaround from the girl who wouldn’t be seen dead in a charity shop as a teenager. I’ve realised that I like to have unique finds rather than just the same seasonal buys as everyone else. Style feels more personal than ever.
We need to normalise purchasing second-hand, celebrate our finds and embrace being conscious consumers for our own well-being and that of the planet.
So, if you have a mission to become more mindful of your clothing choices, what steps can you take to get there?
Rewear & Relove
Fast fashion has gotten us into a terrible state of mind where we think of clothing as disposable.
When I was a student, I got a new outfit from H&M almost every week to wear out partying. Usually, these wouldn’t be well-thought-out choices (surprise surprise) and so they wouldn’t coordinate well with other items in my wardrobe. They’d be worn once or twice and then be consigned to the back of the closet.
Looking back now, I’m horrified I had such a foolish attitude. The hard truth is that most of us wear 20 per cent of our clothes, 80 per cent of the time. So what are the rest doing, other than gathering dust?
A really simple method is to use the hanger trick to work out what you wear. Turn all the hangers in your wardrobe the wrong way around. Each time you take something out and wear it, return it to your wardrobe the right way around. You’ll soon have a very visual representation of what items are doing the heavy lifting!
Find your most worn pieces – for me, it would be, say, an oversize blazer or a satin slip skirt – and use Pinterest or Instagram to search for new ways of styling these pieces up.
Reselling apps like Depop and Vinted make it easy to resell the closes you aren’t wearing, or bag them up for a charity shop or clothes recycling point.
Invest in Aftercare
Hand in hand with owning fewer pieces that we use more, we also need to consider our clothes an investment.
That means taking the time to care for what we have properly so that it lasts well and continues to give us enjoyment for a long time to come.
Get familiar with washing instructions and what they mean. If something needs dry cleaning, like a wool coat or a cashmere jumper, then take it to be done. If you hate ironing, invest in a clothes steamer – especially helpful for silks and other delicate fabrics as it also sanitises them.
Take shoes and boots to be re-soled. Get to know a local alterations place that can take up hems and let garments in and out.
In modern times, we aren’t used to spending money on our clothes once we’ve purchased them, but if you aren’t buying as many new garments, then you have more in the budget to take care of them.
Discover Your Style – And Stick To It
Part of the problem with my fast fashion addiction when I was younger was that I didn’t know my style or what I wanted to look like.
I was a fashion magpie, drawn to anything new and shiny, whether it suited me or reflected my personality or not.
The older I get, the more I understand my taste. I have a sense of my style DNA, and although my head can still occasionally get turned by a piece that isn’t ‘me’, I’m now able to recognise this and talk myself out of it.
Now, this certainly isn’t about never trying anything new. After all, fashion is supposed to be fun and sometimes you need to break out of a style rut.
Yet changes should always be an evolution, not a revolution. They should still be true to who you are, and integrate with items you already own.
So how do you get to know your style? It comes from considering all the different factors. Knowing what body shape and colouring you have (getting a professional analysis on this is a worthwhile investment and can save a lot of clothing purchase mistakes), understanding how certain clothes make you look and feel, and considering the practical situations you have in your life and the things you need to dress for, can all help you to start forming the basis of a great personal style.
This can be especially helpful when you buy pre-loved. Being able to filter second-hand clothing sites by shapes, items, colours, brands and styles that you know work for you can be a game changer in finding those amazing preloved pieces.
Become A Conscious Consumer
When you do buy things, whether it’s a new investment piece or something second-hand, never do it impulsively. It’s taken me a long time to understand that a sale bargain isn’t a bargain at all if you never wear it.
Don’t be tempted to buy solely by discounts, or because it’s payday and you feel like a treat. Instead, keep a list on your phone of the items missing from your wardrobe that fit your style and lifestyle, so you understand exactly what is needed.
Before purchasing anything, take a step back and ask yourself some questions:
- Do I need this item?
- Are there at least three other items I already own that this will go with?
- Is this the best possible version of this item that I can get with my budget?
- Does it fit me well?
- Does it make me want to do a little happy dance?
If you answer no to any of these, it might be worth reconsidering or adding the item to a wishlist to think about later.
Think about fit and fabric with everything you buy. In general, natural fabrics such as cotton, wool, silk and cashmere will last a lot better when properly cared for. They cost a little more, yet when you’re buying fewer items and wearing them more often this balances out.
Embrace Pre-Loved Style
More and more of us are embracing second-hand shopping. The stigma around it that was very real when I was a teenager has completely gone now, and it’s much more de mode to hunt down the perfect pieces pre-loved than it is to mindlessly flip through new season racks.
Depop is achingly trendy. Vinted seems to have massively taken off and has given me a few treasures. Vestiare Collective and Poshmark are the places to grab a designer bargain. It’s all too easy to hunt down the perfect pieces from your phone.
And it makes even more sense with children’s clothes, which they are grown out of before they’re worn.
You get to score a good deal, find a unique piece and save the planet all in a few clicks. What could be more amazing than that?
What are your thoughts on the preloved revolution? Are you well ahead of the curve and a thrifting queen? Or just getting started?
