The Plight of the Guilty Shopper

The environmental edition…

I have been doing some research and a little listen to some podcasts and I have found that my shopping habits are NOT good for the environment.

Mainly this can be blamed on the raw materials that we make our clothes from. Cotton uses vast amounts of water and environment-damaging chemicals in its production and polyester is just oil dug straight up from the ground and thrown into our wardrobes. Stick a couple of plastic buttons on there and you have yourself one climate catastrophe of a cardigan.

Also, I have never considered the fact that, during the production of said cardi, it will need to acquire at least two or three plane tickets!

However, the fact that there are so many of us, all buying too many things causes overproduction and the way in which fashion approaches their manufacturing definitely exacerbates this.

At the top you have the designer labels dictating the seasonal changing of trends. Further down we have the high street and online stores that follows these trends blindly. Each season to the next encourages us to buy more, want more and dispose of more so that we can keep up with the styles of fast fashion.

Part of this problem is the industries inefficient use of their time. Most companies are producing their clothing lines six months or so in advance. They have to guess whether what they produce will be on trend next season. After the production and the shipping and the gambling of our planet’s finite resources, perhaps that pastel blue cardigan they have created will actually need to be cobalt blue and so it will remain unsold in the sale rail.

Eventually all unsold clothes that outlive the sale rail end up in a landfill or even burnt which, to me, kind of sounds like we are funding a massive littering industry! Not a wonderful, creative industry that allows for an individual’s self-expression and confidence.

Clothes are not disposable

I’m sorry, I’m not trying to make anyone feel bad, but awareness is so important! We, as consumers, are also responsible for this overproduction! If we constantly buy more than we need we are prescribing to the consumption culture that is being sold to us. This is where I feel guilty. I see something unusual, with a pattern that catches my eye or a colour I like, and I have the urge to buy it. And usually I do.

I consider myself so lucky to be able to buy things that I like, let alone things that I need. It is a privilege to be environmentally conscious when I am buying and not worrying whether I can afford it or not.

Saying this, ethically sourced and made fabrics (such as ones that have recently been showcased in fashion week) are not at all in my price range and it is doubtful that they will be anytime soon. So, what are we to do? Do I stop buying completely… Well, I’ve definitely reduced the amount I buy but I still have this feeling of guilt.

Mostly, I try to buy second-hand. Even better I go to charity shops and practice conscious purchasing. My advice is to shop for quality – items that you know will last and that you can honestly say you will wear numerous times or one-off, rarer pieces (usually something with insane sequins!).

Some great advice that I received recently was deleting all the shopping apps from my phone. This was life-changing for me as, unfortunately, I subscribe strongly to scroll culture and often, when I’d run out of things on social media, my thumbs would wander over to one of my many online shopping apps. A lot of these apps are huge advocates of fast fashion as well! It is made cheaply, sold cheaply and you don’t care how long it lasts because by the time it starts to wear through you are onto next seasons cute cardi and top combo.

I don’t like criticising the fashion industry. It holds a dear place in my heart but that doesn’t mean we can’t do better! There is room for improvement without feeling guilty. In this day and age, it is almost impossible to do anything without causing a chain reaction of negative impact. Finally, I will leave you with the suggestion of watching The Good Place on Netflix if you haven’t already as there is an episode which explains why everyone descends rather than ascends due to this chain reaction – it makes for an easy, amusing watching with a bit of philosophy thrown in there that alleviates the heaviness that comes with being a responsible human being!