How to invest: achieving your dream sustainable wardrobe

By Lauren Kammerdiener

Once upon a time, fashion was all about investment. Most people owned only two or three outfits, carefully and customisably fitted to suit their shape and needs. The average price for an outfit, when adjusted for inflation, was proportionally far higher in our grandmothers’ day than it is for us now. For the past two decades or so, we’ve been fed a steady diet of cheap pieces, literally designed to end up in landfills on four- to six-week cycles.

    The reason we’ve all adopted this diet is that it’s easy. It’s easy to just go out and buy another £10 T-shirt from H&M when you stain your other one. It’s easy, even with a small income, to go online and order an entire new wardrobe for less than £100. Investing, on the other hand, is not easy. It takes time. It takes a lot of patience and effort. And it often takes a greater amount of money, at least up front. But to be able to cultivate a lasting wardrobe, a wardrobe you truly love and are proud of — it’s worth that time and that money, not only for the environment, but for you and the clothes that you choose to have define you.      

     So, before you buy . . .

    Make a list. Keep a list on your phone of all the pieces you’re looking for; not only does this help you prioritize in the often overwhelming realms of both online and brick and mortar thrifting, it can also keep you from making regrettable impulse purchases. You can also go through and identify items that may already function similarly in your wardrobe, or that are even almost exactly the same, and try to avoid those as well. When out charity shopping, I physically force myself to steer clear of plaid blazers with the knowledge that I already have several of them in my wardrobe at home and definitely do not need to add to that collection. Similarly, it may also be worth taking a little time to consider how much you’ll actually wear a piece in order to justify its purchase. Those patterned boots may be cute, but they’re less cute when you wear them barely a dozen times a year because you only have one outfit with which they really go.

    Know your measurements. Sizes in the fashion industry mean hardly anything anymore; if nothing else, you should really only use them as a general estimate. Before you buy online, always check the measurements provided and see how they align with yours so you can get the best fit possible; I recommend also keeping them in an easily accessible note on your phone. And if you can’t find the measurements of a piece, especially if it’s something secondhand, reach out to the seller and see what they can do. By ensuring that a piece is going to fit and flatter you, you eliminate the need for pesky returns (goodbye unnecessary shipping costs and materials), as well as the trap of buying something you love but that you never actually wear simply because it doesn’t fit properly.

    Know your materials. Not all clothes are created equally. Be aware of the fabrics you’re purchasing; natural fibers like cotton and linen tend to be more friendly to the environment, while your synthetics — polyester, rayon, and the like — are basically modified plastics not constructed to last. Also beware of the dangers of blends — in most clothes made in the past few decades, synthetics are combined with natural fibers which becomes a problem when, at the end of their life cycle, they are impossible to recycle due to the fact that the technology to unbind them simply does not exist.

    Don’t talk yourself into it. If you have any doubts, any at all, you do not need to be investing in this piece. I don’t think I have to tell you that the best pieces in your wardrobe are the ones you fall instantly in love with, the dress that makes you gasp when it catches your eye on the rack or as you’re scrolling through Depop. If it doesn’t elicit that instinctual gasp, you probably don’t love it enough to make that purchase. You can break the cycle of buying clothes you’ll only end up donating in six months by picking pieces that truly bring you joy, the stuff that you know from that inital buy you’ll hold onto forever. All of my favourite pieces in my own wardrobe are those that I fell in love with from the moment I laid eyes on them, and I hope that some day every piece in my wardrobe will bring me that much joy. It does take time and patience to find those pieces, but it is so worth it.

    Don’t be afraid to alter. If you have pieces in your wardrobe that don’t fit you properly, take them to get altered, or, if you’re feeling really brave, try mending them yourself! Don’t let a pair of trousers take up valuable space in your closet just because the zipper doesn’t shut correctly. Basic professional alterations can be surprisingly affordable, especially if you really are considering them as an investment, and there’s plenty of content available on the Internet if you’re willing to undertake such a project, big or small, on your own.

    Overconsumption of secondhand goods can be as equally unsustainable as consumption of fast fashion. A good deal is not a good enough excuse to buy another black top you don’t need, one that will rot in your wardrobe before rotting in a charity shop before eventually rotting in a landfill. Investing in your wardrobe means concentrating the time, energy, and money you usually spend mindlessly browsing fast fashion retailers’ sites on deliberately finding and selecting pieces that, though they may be more expensive, will fit you perfectly and last you forever. We all have to change our mindsets, rewiring how we think about fashion, not as active consumers but as passive investors committed to cultivating the future wardrobes of our dreams. And at the end of the day, for so many of us clothing carries so much meaning and puts so much identity into how both we and others regard ourselves. So shouldn't it make sense that our fashion investments reflect that?