How To Fall Back In Love With Your Clothes: It Will Save Money And, Ultimately, The Planet

We cut out meat, plant kitchen gardens and avoid single-use plastic. But when it comes to our clothes, old habits die hard. How is it that we can go vegan for January, but we dump instead of mend, buy instead of borrow? One woman who has always cherished her clothes is Orsola de Castro, co-founder of Fashion Revolution and author of Loved Clothes Last, a book which came out last year exploring why we need to become emotionally reattached to our clothes, thinking of each garment as a long-term commitment as opposed to a short-term fling.

Loved Clothes Last isn’t a 200-page guilt-trip. Instead, it advocates for a shift in mindset. Reading it, you can’t help but reach that penny-drop moment, realising that buying and chucking can only cause more harm to the environment and the exploitation of garment workers. ‘This is the opposite of going on a diet,’ de Castro told Grazia. ‘This is about adopting a habit that is really joyous so that other people will want to do the same as you.’

Don't Confuse Expensive With Long-Lasting

It’s easy to assume that a higher price tag means better quality and therefore longevity, but both luxury and high-street brands, to varying degrees, are a long way from being 100% transparent. ‘It is your own morals and relationship with a piece of clothing that ultimately dictates what is of value,’ says de Castro.

Do Customise Your Clothes

De Castro calls customising ‘an antidote to wearing the same clothes as everyone else’. As the book says: ‘Almost everything we buy right now is made in a hegemony of sameness, so customising and personalising things to be different is a small but powerful act of sabotage.’

Don't Throw Away Things Mindlessly

A polyester dress will take a minimum of 200 years to biodegrade in landfill; a pair of nylon tights, 40 years. ‘When you become aware that there is no “away”, you will start to analyse the actual journey of these clothes when they’re no longer in your wardrobe. And that journey is long and has a massive social and environmental impact.’ We also shouldn’t be outsourcing the problem to charity shops who, inundated with second- hand clothes, end up exporting them abroad, where they often end up in landfill after wreaking havoc on local textile industries. ‘Donating means giving a gift, it doesn’t mean dumping something you hate.’

Don't Overwash

The more we wash our clothes, the more chemicals and microfibres we’re putting into the water system. ‘When we think of our polluted waterways, we assume that the culprits are factories or agriculture, but it is also us, every single day, with every single wash, consistently, relentlessly releasing toxicants into the system.’ Instead, steam, spot-clean, brush and even freeze (denim) to refresh your clothes between wears.

Do Understand The Difference Between Circularity And Longevity

Both are essential to living more sustainably, but it’s also important to appreciate how they differ. As de Castro writes: ‘Circular means full-circle, from fibre back to fibre, and the capability of repeating this process ad infinitum. Wearing vintage, buying second-hand, swapping, renting, upcycling – none of that is circular. That’s longevity, efficiency and care, which is equally important (if not more so) because, as consumers, that’s where we can have a sizeable impact.’