Dear reader, do you enjoy ‘fabulous’ fashion, maybe even energised by it? Or are you fed-up, and let down by ‘frivolous’ fashion. Perhaps, like myself, you see fashion as flawed, yet with the potential of being great fun.
Let’s, for a moment, imagine a world where everything you see, in clothing stores, fashion magazines and on the runway, is made of 100% animal-free textiles. No animals. No cruelty! How marvelous would that be? Yet before we get ahead of ourselves, happily at ease, let’s consider if cruelty-free fashion is enough to make our relationship with clothing fulfilling, easy and above all, kind?
As a personal stylist, I’m witness to women abusing themselves through fashion.
Whether it’s flinging open the wardrobe doors knowing full well that most of what we have no longer fits (a hurtful daily reminder of perceived inadequacy), to flipping through magazines and believing we’re unworthy of beauty by benchmarking ourselves against the industry’s skewed message of perfection.
We’ve the destruction of Mother Earth to consider too. This redress.com article tackles the issue well, by highlighting the waste of textile, chemical and natural resources as having negative environmental impact.
Then there’s the abuse of our fellow human beings, the garment workers. We know little of where our clothes were made, how they were made, and who made them. Our unconscious support of fast fashion fuels the unjust practices often undetected in this sector of the clothing industry.
I read a quote by fellow image consultant, Keila Tyner, who sums it up perfectly, “Much of the cheap clothing we consume in droves is like our fast food diets—high in calories (quantity) but low in nutrition (quality).”
Yet, just as in being vegan we have the power and choice to make a meaningful contribution to end suffering, so too can we practice the same compassion in our wardrobe choices. Certainly through my own vegan journey (which incidentally began when researching the leather industry), I now recognise that we haven’t lost our ability to dress ourselves in fashion, it’s that we’re lost ourselves in insensitive fashion!
For me, it boils down to “less is more.” Consider these tips to assist in slowing down our shopping frequency, discover ways to muster up individual style authenticity, and make our fashion choices kinder all round:
- Clothing Cleanse: unpack and try everything on, decide what presently serves you well, then generously donate the rest
- Recovery: repair and remodel items worth keeping
- Keep it clean: free up high wardrobe realty space by packing away out-of-season pieces
- Visual appeal: repack and organise your wardrobe to make your daily selection appealing and easily seen
- Avoid temptations: spend less time in shops, online stores, spilling over brochures and magazines
- Commit: to the ‘one in, one out’ policy. This will make you reassess if you’re willing to give up an item for your next possible purchase
- Help at hand: employ a vegan stylist to empower you with the know-how, tips and resources you need for lasting style impact
- Create: have fun in your wardrobe ‘store’, display your accessories, and play with never-tested mix-and-match alternatives
- Declare your commitment: to cruelty-free choices with supportive friends; those who will help you resist any temptations in weaker moments
- Support: intentionally vegan suppliers, companies with 100% transparency policies, thrift, consignment and vintage stores.
After starting at grassroots level in the fashion industry, from design, garment construction, to small business owner to style consultant, Lynette Cowie, VLCE has more recently been researching and writing about how her vegan awareness has impacted on her lifestyle choices. Lynette also finds great pleasure in world travel (she lives in South Africa), and in being the mother of two beautiful tween vegan daughters, cooking, reading, blogging, weight training and walking her canine companions. Contact Lynette via her vegan lifestyle website, on her blog pages, and via her Facebook style news postings.