Sustainable fashion - Is it doable?
One of my new years resolutions was to buy no new clothes for 2019 (within reason of course). However, for the past weeks I’ve been thinking of buying a new pair of pants (seeing as a somehow I only own jeans) and so yesterday I went into the Icelandic shopping mall Kringlan. My goal was to find a pair of pants for as cheap as possible seeing as I am on a broke student budget.
Because of that my first instinct was to go into all the cheapest store’s in the mall. For ex. Vera Moda, Vila, New Yorker, Lindex and H&M. After walking into all of these stores I almost immediately walked out again disappointed. Why? Firstly I just didn’t find was I was looking for and secondly when I looked at the clothes I found them all to be cheaply made and was certain that they wouldn’t last me through the year. After being in all of these stores I also realised that I just couldn’t support these fast fashion companies anymore. Knowing that they are treating their workers unfairly and contributing largely to climate change.
This has been a very complex topic for me in regards to living sustainably as I want to buy clothes from more sustainable companies but they are often out of my price range and very hard to find in Iceland. I just find it infuriating that in all of Kringlan and Smáralind (the 2 biggest shopping malls in Iceland) there are hardly any sustainable options when it comes to buying clothes, or most products for that matter. Yes I know that there are second hand stores around but seeing as I am a plus size girl it is very hard for me to find second hand clothes that fit me, as much as I would love to support those stores.
So what is my solution?? I have to admit I don’t know yet. I’m gonna do my research and most likely I will have to end up buying something online (which also sucks because then It has to be shipped to Iceland). This is something that will hopefully be better in the future and I think it will just take some time to change.
I am very happy to see that a lot of people are starting to wake up and see the harm in these fast fashion companies. However they are still growing and selling more clothes than ever that just end up in our landfill. I know this isn’t exactly the most educational blog post but I just wanted to get my thoughts out there and raise awareness to this issue. Having said that I encourage all of you reading this post to be more conscious buyers in the future and try to boycott these terrible companies as much you can. I know it’s convenient to pop in there to buy that cheap pair of socks or a sweater but think of everything that happened so that you could get those pieces so cheap and what will happen after you stop wearing them. I could make a whole blog post on the environmental harm of these clothes (maybe that will come in the future) but to be honest you probably know that already and if not I encourage you to do your research and watch the documentary “The true cost” on Netflix.
Lastly, if you know of any good sustainable brands that have sizes for +sized girls please let me know. Let’s all tackle this together and help each other to live more sustainably.
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Much love, Salka.
