Mistakes I’ve Made on my Journey to a Sustainable Closet

When it comes to crossing over to the sustainable fashion world, it is incredibly overwhelming. There are so many things that you have to consider on what makes a clothing garment sustainable. I’ve narrowed it down to focusing it on three key aspects: how the garment affects the social, economic, and environmental world. But by trying to make a sustainable closet, I’ve made countless mistakes. Here are the four mistakes I’ve made and that I’m trying to get better at. After all, we all make mistakes… right?

Top (Similiar) | Jeans (Thrifted Similiar) | Tom’s Shoes | Bralette

Earrings (Similiar) | Fashion Revolution Magazine

Stopping My Shopping Addiction Cold Turkey

When I hit traffic, my favorite way to kill time is to stop at Marshalls. I just love wandering around the aisles and trying to find something cute (very similar to thrift shopping in that sense). The problem is, I don’t need most of the stuff I buy, yet, I still find myself wandering. My fix: before I go to the cash register, I’ve been trying to check two things. First, I check the location of where the clothes were made and second, I look up the store on my app Good on You. It’s these two steps that help me curve my addiction. Sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t. Better yet, go thrift shopping instead of Marshalls.

Buying New Instead of Renting

There are so many dress rentals now like Rent the Runway and Poshare that make it easier to not repeat a fancy dress for special events. This is not only environmentally friendly but it helps you save a ton of money. Unfortunately, the two weddings I went to this summer I ended up buying the dresses instead of renting. For the Lake George wedding, I was worried that I wouldn’t have enough time to send it back. The wedding this past weekend, I ended up finding this beautiful dress from Express. My fix: Instead of keeping the dresses unused in my closet or throwing them out, I’ve decided to put them on eBay so they get more use in the future. The next time I need a dress for a special event, I’m hoping to use one of these sites.

Not Trying Hard Enough When Thrift Shopping

As I talked about in this post, when I first started to thrift shop it was incredibly overwhelming. I was picky, uncreative, and really just didn’t put the effort into finding god pieces. I took a month or two off before I decided to try again and ended up getting really lucky. My fix: look everywhere and try to find something that needs a home. You’ll be surprised where you can find some treasured items. Also, stay tuned to my Instagram because I’m going to start posting “Thursday Thrifts” where I post a thrifted find every week. I think it will be a great way to show all of the goodies you can find thrifting.

Not Reusing What I Already Have

The fashion world and my slight addiction to Instagram makes me feel like I need to have something new in my closet constantly. There are still items I have in the back of my closet that I never use. For the clothes I know I’m not going to wear I’ve been trying to sell on eBay or force myself to wear them. My fix: try a 10×10 challenge. It helps you get outside of your comfort zone and use the same ten products in different ways. Your creativity will be practically oozing out of you.

End Point

Like me, you’re not going to be a sustainable fashion guru overnight. Learning about all of the different factors takes time and effort to learn. Seriously, just other night I realized that you can make clothes out of the fur shedding from giant bunnies. There are a few resources that have really helped me like the app Good on You, books like Fashion Revolution and Over-Dressed by Elizabeth L. Cline, and multiple sustainable fashion bloggers. There is an endless plethora of knowledge that is out there but we just need to grab it and listen.

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If you’re new to sustainable fashion, what are you most worried about? If you’ve focused on sustainable fashion for a while now, what mistakes have you made along the way? Let me know in the comments down below. 

As always,

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