5 Eco-Chic Habits to Sustain your Current Wardrobe

In honor of Earth Day, I feel like it’s appropriate to bring attention to how we can sustain our current wardrobes. Being environmentally conscience starts with the clothes you already have and will purchase. While it’s important to invest in organic cotton, support the use of hemp as a textile and favor natural dyes to chemically created colors, these eco-chic habits can be difficult to live by when the majority of the fashion industry doesn’t practice them. Therefore, here are 5 habits that can help sustain your current wardrobe and in the long run, reduce energy and waste.

1. Invest in quality, classic pieces that you’ll conceivably have forever. (Or at least wear them until they rip and then have them professionally mended.) It is possible to sustain a wardrobe on a minimal amount of clothing as long as your investing in well crafted pieces. For example, my boring work wardrobe. Three years ago I invested in a BCBG black pencil skirt and I still wear it weekly to work. It’s my only pencil skirt and it does me just fine.

2. Treat your clothes with respect. Keep fabrics clean and fresh by bringing items to the dry cleaner. If you can, preserve clothes on hangers; not scrunched in a drawer. Your wardrobe will last longer with proper care.

3. Mend your broken clothes. So, you wore it til you tore it? Great, try mending on your own, or take your garment to the tailor for professional fixing. If a zipper breaks, have it replaced. There’s no need to buy a new sweater if the hole can be mended.

4. Be thrifty. Instead of spending money on new products, visit second hand stores and consignment shops. You’ll surely find unique treasures and even a marked down designer piece. Personal favorite second hand stores are Buffalo Exchange, Tokyo 7, Ina, and Housing Works.

5. Recycle. Never throw out clothes you don’t like. Why not recycle clothes with friends by hosting a swapping party? If that doesn’t work, donate your duds at a local Salvation Army, a thrift shop or a recycling textile drop-off at your local green market. I’m a firm believer that clothing should never end up in a landfill.

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