Skirt: Le Kilt, Jumper: Bella Freud, Boots: Chanel, Leather Jacket: Acne Studios
As someone who's job it is essentially to buy, wear and promote clothes, I've been thinking a lot recently about sustainability and my shopping habits, and it seems that thankfully I'm not alone either. After watching Stacey Dooley's documentary Fashion's Dirty Secrets last week, it really brought home just how bad the effect of constant consumption is on the planet, how much the fashion industry is to blame and in all honesty, actually made me feel a bit sick. It made me realise how ignorant i've been and how things really need to change, quickly. Now I'm not saying i'm going to stop shopping, because lets face I'm not, but what I am going to do is think twice about my purchases moving forward. I'm not particularly one for fast fashion in the sense of being a slave to trends and have always believed in investment purchases, however thats not to say I don't mindlessly snap things up in Zara, Topshop and the like on the regular too. When I talk about investment purchases though, that could be something from the high street, to me an investment purchase is something that you're going to wear, and love, time and time again, something of decent quality and something you're not going to wear once and cast aside. I'll admit that on the most part my investments are expensive ones, but that is usually down to quality and timelessness for me. This outfit features some of my best investment purchases, that I have had a while (excluding the boots) and go back to time and time again.
I rarely ever throw my clothes away and will always sell on re-sell sites, give to family and friends or donate to charity which is a step in the right direction I think, but moving forward I want to be better with shopping and consuming. I have always loved vintage and charity shopping and regularly mix these pieces with high street and designer as you all know i'm sure, but when I'm buying new pieces I want to know more about the brands and the processes being used to manufacture them and I also want to really love pieces again. I want to be excited to wear them over and over in so many different ways. With this in mind, I have decided to introduce a monthly style challenge where I pick an item of clothing to wear every day for a week and show the different ways in which to style it, and just how creative you can get and how versatile pieces really can be. It may not sound that hard but as someone who relishes in wearing a different pair of shoes, handbag and jacket/ coat daily this is definitely going to challenge me! But it will also challenge me to really think about what I buy moving forward, encouraging me to always be asking myself: how many ways could I wear it? Will it work season after season? and is it going to stand the test of time? After all, for me this is what being creative is all about, styling pieces in different ways, and if we can be mindful in the process well, I'd say it's a win win. November will be the first instalment of what I'm planning to call 'Care and Re-wear' so do keep an eye out over on my Instagram where i'll be sharing the various outfits daily, and then at the end of the week I'll do a blog post round up on the selected piece - hope you guys enjoy!
Rachael
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