September is the month to celebrate fashion, but that doesn’t necessarily have to mean shopping for new clothes.
A new #SecondhandSeptember campaign is calling for fashion-lovers across the UK to get creative and pledge to only buy secondhand clothes for 30 days.
We’ve all heard the stats - our passion for throwaway clothes and reluctance to post the same outfit on the ‘gram leads to 11 million items of clothing sent to landfill each week. In the UK we’re now buying twice as many new clothes than we did a decade ago and far more than any other nation in Europe.
But extending the life-cycle of clothes even by just nine months reduces the carbon footprint by three per cent, water by four per cent and waste by one per cent, according to WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme).
And we are happy to do our part - charity shops and clothes banks from organisations like #LoveNotLandfill are receiving record levels of donations.
But out-with-the-old doesn’t have to mean in-with-the-brand-new. True to form, fashion is evolving and pre-loved is making its mark. So much so, that the resale market is predicted to be 50 per cent bigger than fast fashion in less than 10 years, according to GlobalData analysis for Thredup.
This is in no small part thanks to the rise of sites like Depop where clothes are upcycled by creatives; Vestiaire Collective which curates pre-loved designer pieces and Beyond Retro which enables you to shop by your favourite era - colour blocking and denim from the 90s is now officially vintage.
Vinted is a less cluttered ebay, allowing you to sell as well as buy your own clothes fairly easily. The “Airbnb of fashion” By Rotation and Nu Wardrobe are just two of the peer-to-peer rental platforms continuing to pop up.
FAST FASHION
It would take 13 years to drink the water needed to create one pair of jeans and one t-shirt.
The clothes sent to landfill each year in the UK weigh as much as the Empire State Building.
All of these options mean Secondhand September could be one of those rare win-wins that are kinder on your purse and the planet without having to compromise on style.
“Shoppers high’ is a feeling everyone loves now and again – that thrill you get when you treat yourself to something new, even if it’s just new to you,” says sustainable fashion expert from Oxfam, Fee Gilfeather, the charity behind Secondhand September.
“The challenge we have set is to see if you can go the whole of September without buying any brand new items of clothing to help minimise the amount of things that end up in landfills needlessly every year.”
Of course, it goes without saying that you should not be earmarking new items to purchase in October. That definitely defeats the object...
Lizzie Rivera is founder of ethical lifestyle site BICBIM.
