Is your closet overflowing with cheap clothes that you barely wear, and are you looking to make a sustainable change? This blog lists practical tips to start embracing slow fashion and ditch fast fashion, helping you make sustainable clothing choices that are good for your style, wallet, and the environment.
Fast fashion refers to the fast production of cheap clothing, that is made to follow the latest microtrend instead of becoming a lasting part of your wardrobe. This leads to waste, environmental impacts, and often human rights issues for the garment workers.
With the growing awareness of how unsustainable fast fashion is, many are turning to slow fashion as an alternative—a more thoughtful, sustainable, and ethical way to build your wardrobe.
At its core, slow fashion is about taking a long term view on how you purchase and treat clothes, and considering the whole lifecycle impact of garments on the environment and on people. The main principles of slow fashion are:
- Buy Less
- Use clothes for longer
- Buy from sustainable companies
Check out our blog explaining what is slow fashion if you want to learn more about the environmental and social impacts of fast fashion, and the history and principles of slow fashion. If you’re ready to get started with making a chance, read on to learn our guide for following the slow fashion lifestyle!
19 Tips For Starting With Slow Fashion
1.Wear your clothes to death
Don’t start by throwing out your fast fashion items – that defeats the purpose. The most sustainable item is the one you already own, so wear your clothes to death before you start thinking about replacing them with better options.
2. Treat your clothes like valuable possessions
Shift your mindset about how you treat your clothes, and look after them like the valuable resource they are instead of as disposable items. Taking good care of the clothes you already own can extend their lifetime a lot, meaning that you have to make fewer new purchases.
3. Do laundry mindfully
A simple way to increase the lifespan of your clothes to be more mindful of how you do laundry, as it can contribute to the degradation of your clothes if you use harsh methods. Try washing clothes less often – items like trousers and sweaters usually don’t have to be washed after every single wear. Also try washing on lower temperatures, and air-dry your clothes instead of using a dryer.
4. Learn basic sewing skills
How often have you stopped wearing something because there was a rip in it, or a button fell off? Learning some basic sewing skills makes it easy to repair minor damage, and it’s a lot easier than you might think. Just buy a sewing kit and experiment, or find guides online!
5. Visit local tailors
For anything you can’t fix yourself, try going to your local tailor for professional repairs. It’s usually not expensive and it makes you clothes wearable again for years to come. And it will be much cheaper than replacing perfectly fine clothes over and over.
6. Try out Repair cafés
If you don’t want to use a tailor, check if your neighbourhood has a repair café! These are free meeting spaces where you can bring your broken items and find tools to fix them, as well as volunteers who can help you with it. It’s a great space to reduce waste, learn new skills, and connect with your community.
7. Adjust items you don’t wear
Aside from fixing broken garments, also review your wardrobe for clothes that you don’t wear because of a detail that annoys you, like the fit or a design choice. Tailors and repair cafes can help you make adjustments to make it exactly to your requirements, so you can make unloved and unworn pieces wearable again.
8. Shop less
The golden rule of slow fashion is simple: buy fewer clothes. Stop making shopping a regular activity and only buy new clothes when you actually need something. This is easier said than done, but the next few tips can help you achieve this.
9. Resist impulse buying
Fast fashion brands are masters of marketing, often using discounts and limited-time offers to encourage impulse buys. It’s important to recognise those techniques and consciously resist them. Only buy something if you actually need it, and not because it’s on sale, no matter how good the deal is!
10. Implement a wait rule
One effective way to resist impulse buying is by implementing a “wait rule”— keep an item on your wish list for at least a week or a month before deciding whether to buy it.
11. Use decision check lists
Another option is to create a checklist of questions to go through before you buy something new, like ‘Do I need it?’, ‘Do I already own something similar?’, ‘Will I still want this a year from now?’. This can help you assess your actual needs and reduces the likelihood of buyer’s remorse.
12. Shop for you, not for trends
Fast fashion is driven by microtrends, which pressure consumers to constantly update their wardrobes, which leads to overconsumption and waste. Instead of shopping for the latest product products your for you page is trying to convince you to get, invest in pieces that reflect your personal style and will stand the test of time, which helps you build a wardrobe that is authentic and sustainable.
13. Choose quality over quantity
When you do need new clothes, always choose quality over quantity. Instead of purchasing dozens of cheap, trendy items, invest in fewer, high-quality pieces that are designed to last. Although they may be more expensive upfront, they save money in the long run because they outlast cheaper alternatives. The philosophy of slow fashion is all about choosing long-term durability over the short-lived excitement of fast fashion.
14. Build a capsule wardrobe
You may have heard of a capsule wardrobe before. It really just refers to buying clothing items that you can mix and match easily, so you can create multiple outfits with fewer clothes. It doesn’t necessarily mean you can only buy basic, minimalist items if that’s not your style, but just make sure that you can wear any new tops you buy with multiple bottoms, and vice versa. Also buy shoes with the mindset that they should match with most of your outfits, so you can cycle through about 2-3 pairs of shoes.
15. Buy from sustainable companies
When buying new clothes, buy from sustainable and ethical companies. This can involve a bit more research and time, but that’s all part of slowing down and being intentional with your choices. Brands that embrace slow fashion produce in smaller batches, use natural or recycled materials, and ensure that workers are treated fairly throughout the supply chain. It’s about shopping with the awareness that every purchase you make has an impact on planet and people. This article explains how to find and recognise sustainable clothing brands.
16. Look for sustainable fabrics
One of the main things to look for in sustainable clothes is the material choice. Natural or recycled fibres like organic cotton, hemp, or deadstock are far better than cheap synthetic materials like polyester and nylon. There’s a reason why fast fashion loves polyester – it’s cheap and gets ruined quickly so you buy new clothes, while the remains stay in the environment for centuries and sheds microplastics. This article explains what sustainable fabrics to look out for.
17. Pay attention to ethical production methods
Ethical issues are an important part of the impact of clothes, and the fast fashion industry is known for having a lot of issues with human rights violations and labour conditions. When researching sustainable clothing companies, pay attention to how garment is produced. Sustainable brands are transparent about wages, working conditions, and their overall ethics. A lack of information is often a red flag for greenwashing.
18. Shift your mindset about costs
If you feel hesitant to let go of fast fashion companies because you feel like they are all you can afford, and that that sustainable clothing brands are simply too expensive, remember the full picture. Slow fashion is a mindset shift – it’s not about the price per item, but the price per wear.
Think about how many clothes you buy in a year. On the same budget, you could buy dozens of fast fashion clothes that you will have to replace every few months, or buy just a handful of good quality pieces that you can wear for years to come. Also remember that when a garment is cheap, it is always for a reason, and someone else else paying for it – namely the environment and the garment workers.
19. Shop for second-hand clothes
Thrifting clothes is affordable, sustainable, and full of unique finds. Check out your local charity shops or apps like Vinted and Depop to find unique gems, keeping things affordable while keeping clothes out of landfill.
Hopefully you have found these tips helpful for starting our slow fashion journey or finding new inspiration. Remember it’s not about being perfect, but about starting the change, and improving from there on.
So get started today by choosing just a few of our slow fashion tips, and keep trying more until you reach your goal! Check out our other resources for conscious clothing shopping below:
