Why I have stopped buying new clothes

I’ve been planning on writing something about fast fashion for a while, because it is hugely topical and is an issue which greatly concerns me. My original idea was to focus on the high street brands which are making a difference. However, I don’t really feel comfortable promoting or condoning shopping with certain brands just because they turn down their lights in store during the day. I’ve made the decision to stop buying clothes, inspired by my dear friend Hannah, and this post explains why.

Fast fashion is a huge issue facing the world now, and one I was not aware of the impacts of until embarrassingly recently. Personally, I never gave a second thought about where my clothes were coming from or how they were made. I was just totally ignorant but now I can’t stop thinking about how our buying habits are affecting the planet.

The fashion industry is the second biggest consumer of water, producing 20% of waste water as well as generating more greenhouse gas emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined.

I don’t like to sound preachy or stuck up but this is not an industry which I can contribute to anymore, at least for the foreseeable future. Shopping for new clothes is one of my favourite pass times: I love searching online for clothes, seeing new trends, looking for the new items coming in every season. I can still do these things, just without purchasing.

My decision has come from the fact that there are many other options to get new clothes if/when I need them. I can buy from reliable, sustainable online clothing stores as well as Depop and charity shops for second hand options.

Most of the clothes we buy from the high street are simply not designed to last, new stock comes in weekly and we as consumers are urged to buy now before stock is gone.

“We used to have a traditional fashion calendar with two to four seasons a year,” explains Elizabeth Cline, author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion. “Now we have new trends coming out every week — it’s a constant rotation of new styles.”

Everyone has been tempted by the fact you can buy full outfits in Primark and websites like Boohoo for less than £20. I’m not going to sit here like a saint and say half of my wardrobe isn’t currently from both of these stores. However, it gets to a point where we as consumers need to think about WHY these clothes are so cheap. What really is the cost of us getting £4 t-shirts?

The prime example of the cost of fast fashion is the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh 2013. This is what the fashion industry produces. Workers at these factories in third world countries suffer working in horrific conditions with very little pay to produce clothes for UK consumers. War on Want have various reports made to educate and inform people on what working in the garment industry is like.

With both the impact of fast fashion on the environment and third world country garment workers undeniable, I will be stopping buying items from fast fashion brands for a pro-longed period of time. I could sit here and say I’m never buying fast fashion from the high street again, but that’s most likely a lie. At some point, I will probably need new underwear and have to go to Primark.

At the end of the day, nobody is perfect. We can’t all be super woke, environmentalists who are completely plastic free vegans with no carbon foot print. Everyone can only do their best. I’m all for realistic goals, so my realist goals for my clothing ban is to avoid the high street and fast fashion as best as I humanly can whilst aiming to not buy ANY clothes for a solid few months.

For anyone looking for more information, here are the articles I’ve used to inform myself on the issues I’ve discussed:

6 Ways to Quit Fast Fashion

https://www.unece.org/info/media/news/forestry-and-timber/2018/fashion-is-an-environmental-and-social-emergency-but-can-also-drive-progress-towards-the-sustainable-development-goals/doc.html

What’s Wrong With Fast Fashion + What You Can Do To Help

How To (Actually) Give Up Fast Fashion

Siobhan x

 

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The F Word – Lilly Pebbles Review

I’m starting off the new year by writing my first blog post on the last book I read in 2018. Upon finishing this novel, I felt like I really enjoyed it but thinking back I think I just enjoyed the simplicity of this easygoing book.

The F Word by Lilly Pebbles is a very wholesome book describing the many types of friendships she’s had throughout her life highlighting the good and bad parts of friendships.

I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t followed Lilly or aware she was a blogger before reading this book. My favourite blogger, Hannah Gale posted a photo of it on Instagram and I bought it because I liked the look of it.

I was hugely pleasantly relieved when I read the back to see it was about friendship, because I hadn’t read anything like this before. It is such an interesting topic that could have had a book with such amazing depth covering it.

When I first started the book and Pebbles was discussing her long standing friendships with the girls she was friends with when she was 4, I didn’t think I could read on. I had to take a break from the book and think, “is this for me?” purely because it just made me sad thinking of all the friendships I had when I was younger that have fizzled out.

Friendships fizzle out all the time, and thinking back to when I originally read those pages, I was most likely just having a super emotional time. I can now say after completing the book it made me think back to all of my friendships, new and old, with fond, warm memories which is always a nice feeling.

The book offers a lot of advice about how to handle situations within friendships. The photo above which gives advice on how to handle friendships whilst either being single or in a relationship. This could potentially be useful to younger readers who maybe need advice on situations like this, but not adults as we have all likely navigated our way through situations like this before.

Overall, I’m not gonna say this book is a must-read because your life could probably continue to function if you didn’t, however, it was fun and nice to read. This is a book I would read on a Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea purely because it’s nice and not serious. It’s not hugely serious and doesn’t take a lot of effort to get on board with which I think is something the author was perhaps going for.

There has been a lot of mixed reviews on this book, some loving it whilst other disappointed fans of Lilly Pebbles were not impressed. I had no expectations coming into this which is perhaps why I’m left with a more positive impression of this. Despite my enjoyment, I would like to add this book is definitely for a primarily younger audience of teenagers and young adults who would probably appreciate the content more. It’s slightly insulting to assume women in their late 20s and thirties don’t know how to act around their single and non-single friends.

I can understand why fans would be genuinely disappointed by this book, as it has such an exciting premise (to me, anyway) because I really didn’t feel any wiser or better after reading it.

I don’t really like leaving negative reviews on things, but honesty is always the most important thing.

Have you read this book? What was your thoughts?

Siobhan x

Recently Reading

One of my New Years resolutions for 2018 was to read a book per month and so far so good, I am succeeding.

Like many people I fell out of love with reading over the years but now I am getting back into it and really starting to appreciate the feeling of getting lost in a book once again.

I haven’t yet read as much as I would want too as I currently have a full shelf of unread books and more to get through but I am making a start.

Let’s start by discussing my most recent read and by far one of my favourite stories of all time.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 

This book just reminds me of high school in the most positive way possible. My drama class studied the play of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie for our higher exam and I can recall everyone in the class practically being able to quote the play word for word. The book is about an eccentric, romantic and free spirited Edinburgh teacher Jean Brodie and her special group of girls, the “creme de la creme”. Miss Brodie preaches “give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life.” it is this exact reason which brings her downfall in her school, Marcia Blane. This is one of my favourite stories and will stay this way for a very long time as it is close to my heart and reminds me of such happy times, as well as being an excellent and well-written read.

Girl Boss 

I was originally going to dedicate a whole blog post to discussing this book but I decided against it as I am probably one of the last people to get round to reading it. Overall, I did really enjoy reading the book as I found it fairly amusing and entertaining. However, as many people note I would not buy this book if you are looking into getting good advice and insight into starting a business. It is like half memoir and half business guide but without the good advice. Girlboss tells the story of Nasty Gal founder Sophia Amoruso who went from making sandwiches at Subway, being a petty thief to selling vintage clothes on eBay and turning that into a $100 million business. Impressive, right? I LOVE the illustrations in this book and it is refreshingly honest and funny too about Amoruso’s journey to where she is today.

The Woman In Black 

This book was a birthday gift from my flat mate for my birthday. I’m not going to lie this was the first book I read this year and that was because it got right to the end of January and I hadn’t yet started another book, let alone finished one and I didn’t want to fail my New Years resolution in the first month. I saw the film for this already when it first came out so I went into this book knowing the storyline. The book is reasonably short but still manages to pack a punch with all the creepy details it entails. The book has all the elements of a perfect ghost story – tragic back story, ghost seeking revenge, bad stormy weather and a creepy old house.

The Sun and Her Flowers

I am probably going to write a more in depth review of this book later on as I did with Milk and Honey but I want to mention this in here anyway. I was such a big fan of Milk and Honey so naturally when this came out last year I was super excited, this was a birthday present from my mum. This book is a safe haven for those who are hurting and want to nurture themselves. The book has an enticing table of contents, like a flower cycle: wilting, falling, rooting, rising, and blooming. The Wilting section contains poetry relating to the early stages of a break up and how the person wants to get in touch with themselves again. Falling is the downfall containing poetry describing feelings of loneliness and depression. Rooting has poetry relating to the process of regaining strength and self love as the soul re-energizes itself. Rising details how the person rises from the ground and moves on and leaves toxicity behind. Blooming is the last chapter in which the person realises that they need to put themselves first and take care of their own happiness.

These are my four recent reads, as well as the pile of magazines I now have to get through. My gran has been posting magazines like Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire down to me in Glasgow as she knows I like them, how cute is that? Let me know what you’ve been reading and if you have any thoughts on the books I’ve mentioned. Hope you enjoyed reading,

Siobhan x