February in Fashion, Condensed.
Why fabric fraud is easy to hide, street style's fatphobia problem, the struggle for the soul of the B Corp movement, and the definitive ranking of leather alternatives.
Having spent the last four months back home in sunny Perth, Australia, I’m now back in grey, freezing London. This week, I’ve been busy 1. questioning my life choices and 2. facing a task I promised myself I’d complete back in November when I got ready to leave: the dreaded wardrobe clear-out. An almost-Spring clean, if you will.
Living in a tiny flat in central London is great for many things, but not for wardrobe space. So in a jet-lagged haze, the task has begun. I’ve split things into piles: to keep, to donate, to resell. There’s also a small miscellaneous pile of clothes that don’t fit into any category, which if I’m being honest will probably live in a storage box under my bed for the next few years.
Writing a lot about the importance of responsibly rehoming unwanted clothes hasn’t made this task any easier. If anything I’m paralyzed by the fear of getting it wrong. My internal dialogue has been swinging from “oh god this is exhausting” to “if I put this all in a cupboard I can pretend it doesn’t exist and this will all be over” to “how can I make sure this stuff actually goes to a good home and not the Atacama desert?” It’s been a rollercoaster and I only started yesterday.
My main takeaway is: this is a life admin job that takes so much time and effort — prepare yourself mentally before jumping in. Don’t be like me and try to do the whole lot in one go. Instead, focus on one aspect (reselling, donating or keeping) at a time. Some helpful hints to keep in mind:
Donating
It sounds obvious but only donate clean, wearable clothes with no stains or tears. Charity shops don’t have the capacity to wash or repair your clothes, meaning they’ll likely end up in the great bundles of textile waste that go to places like the Kantamanto Market in Ghana. (Watch Trashion below to learn more about this!)
If you donate shoes, make sure you keep them as a pair by either tying the laces together or putting them into their own bag so the right doesn’t lose the left, in which case they’re useless.
Call your local charity shop to ask if they’re accepting donations. Often, they’re overwhelmed and can’t take on more. If the shop is closed, don’t leave the donations outside, they’ll probably get ruined.
If you use a clothing donation bin, put your clothing into a sealed bag and then into the bin. Again, sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised.
Donate clothing you genuinely think someone would like to find in a charity shop. That old worn-out t-shirt from H&M? Sorry to tell you, but no one wants it.
Reselling
Take detailed photos and write thorough (and honest) product descriptions of your garments — it will help to sell them more quickly and avoid unhappy buyers.
Find the right resell platform for your clothes. Not intending to make much money? Look at Depop or eBay. Selling vintage, designer or contemporary pieces worth a bit more? Vestiaire Collective and Vinted are good options. Also, check if the brand you’re selling has its own resale platform — they’re increasingly common.
Again, make sure the items are clean and in good condition before shipping them off to the seller. You wouldn’t want to receive a garment with an old receipt or tissue in the pocket, so treat others with the same courtesy.
Keep
Ask yourself some questions and be brutally honest with your answers. Does this fit me? Will I wear it again? Can I gift it to someone who will use it more than I will? Does this garment fit my personal style, lifestyle, or who I want to be?
Create a pile of pieces to be altered or mended and set aside time to drop them off at your local dry cleaner or alterations shop. If you’re big on convenience, check out Sojo, a great door-to-door alterations platform in London.
Pack away your seasonal wardrobe pieces at the end of each season. Although it doesn’t feel like it in London, we’re supposedly coming out of winter. Now might be time to think about packing away the items you won’t wear until next winter. You’ll declutter your wardrobe space and once next winter rolls around, you get to rediscover all the pieces you packed away. Fun!
Got any good tips for mastering the wardrobe clearout? For entirely selfish reasons, I would love to hear your thoughts. Hit reply at the end of the email to get in touch!
Until next month,
Meg X
Things I Wrote
The Definitive List of the Vegan Leather Alternatives, Ranked for EcoCult
It seems like every other month a new, plant-based leather alternative hits the materials market, promising to revolutionize the fashion industry. EcoCult editor Alden Wicker and I ranked 10 of the most common leather alternative materials by a host of criteria including biodegradability, toxicity, plastic use and feedstock.
Watch: TENCEL™ Talks — Amy Powney in Conversation with Megan Doyle
I had the pleasure of interviewing Amy Powney, creative director of the sustainable London brand Mother of Pearl, this month. We discussed her new documentary, Fashion Reimagined, her work at MoP, and much more.
Watch: TENCEL™ Talks — Patrick McDowell in Conversation with Megan Doyle
Designer Patrick McDowell just showed their latest collection at London Fashion Week. For GFF, we discussed the collection, Patrick’s journey from making clothing in their bedroom to showing during LFW, their holistic approach to sustainability and more.
Things I Didn’t Write
The Psychology of Fast Fashion: Why Conversation About Fast Fashion Evokes Such Strong Emotions In Us by Brittany Sierra for Sustainable Fashion Forum
Op-Ed | When Sustainable Fashion Does More Harm Than Good by Beth Esponette for the Business of Fashion
Why Fabric Fraud is so Easy to Hide by Kelly Oakes for BBC
Experts Explain how to Choose Clothing Fabrics and Fibres That Last by Bianca O’Neill for Fashion Journal Magazine
‘Vegan,’ ‘Sustainable’: How to Spot Misleading Fashion Claims by Allyson Chiu for the Washington Post
Street Style has a Fatphobia Problem. Can it be Fixed? by Dominique Norman for Refinery29
Fast Fashion Brands are Distorting Charity Shops by Sophie Benson for Everpress
The Struggle for the Soul of the B Corp Movement by Anjli Raval for the FT
Colour Pops, Layers and Keys as Accessories: How to Dress Well While Owning Less by Lucianne Tonti for The Guardian
The To-Do List
Trashion: The Stealth Export of Waste Plastic Clothes to Kenya by Changing Markets Foundation (12 minutes)
This short film exposes where clothing donations end up — often in huge secondhand clothing markets and landfills in places like Kenya and Ghana. Changing Markets Foundation has done an incredible job of capturing the scale of environmental havoc and the human impact of the secondhand clothing trade.
Report: Transparency 2.0 by Techstyler and FibreTrace
The brilliant team behind sustainability and innovation consultancy Techstyler has just released a white paper on transparency and traceability in fashion’s supply chains with FibreTrace. The traceability playbook I wrote with tech company TrusTrace last year even got a shoutout!
The Ethics of Good Looks - Night Of Ideas 2023 by the French Institute UK. (1 hour)
Sarah Kent, Chief Sustainability Correspondent at BoF, hosts this panel discussion with Justine Porterie from Depop, sustainability journalist Tansy Hoskins, and Professor Dilys Williams, director of LCF’s Centre for Sustainable Fashion. They discuss the scale of fashion’s sustainability challenge. A fascinating conversation!
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