Our wardrobes contain an average of 150 items. Unfortunately, 80% we don’t wear. The items we wear are discarded and thrown away after 5 to 7 wears. Every year, we throw away about 6 kg of clothes each.
Not exactly friendly to our wallets, and the environment, right?
But how many times do we need to wear our clothes? Or in other words, how long should our clothes last? Because of course, here too we are stuck with the chicken and the egg story: should we wear our clothes longer or should the quality be better so that we can effectively wear them longer?
Without a doubt, the quality of our contemporary clothing is a serious issue, but something we as individuals have no direct control over. What we can do something about, however, is how we treat clothing and how much and how long we wear it. So let's focus on that first and foremost.
The impact of wearing our items more and longer
For years, the benchmark has been 30 wears. This spawned from the 30 Wears Challenge, first conceived by Eco Age co-founder Livia Firth and journalist Lucy Seigle in 2015.
Moreover, a study by WRAP, showed that if we use our clothes for 9 months longer, we can already reduce its ecological footprint by 20-30%
Combining these 2 factors: wearing clothes for at least 9 months and a minimum of 30 times, we can each save 20kg CO2 (= planting a tree) within that time frame per clothing item.
Shop conscious and mindful
You will never hear me say you cannot buy clothes anymore. We buy clothes due to many reasons: mentally, and physically, for practical reasons, and for pure pleasure - style is wellness! But, make sure that when you buy something new, you have the intention to keep it and restyle it all the time - even when it’s not on trend you can make it trendy by re-styling it.
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Now that you know the impact you can make by wearing an item more and longer, you can use those benchmarks to be more conscious when you buy a new item. I call it taking responsibility.
When you want to buy something new, deliberate over the item and wonder: will I actually wear this? Adding an item to your mental wardrobe and calculating all the outfit combinations or adding the items to your digital wardrobe and pre-create outfits with it, can help you decide whether you’ll add to basket or exit the browser.
Elongate the lifespan
Besides shopping conscious, It doesn’t necessarily mean we should hold on to unused clothes. A closet full of clothes you actually wear also means letting go of the items you don’t wear. Yes, our lifestyles, bodies, and tastes change as we age, so it’s realistic that we don’t wear the exact same items forever. Luckily, there have never been more options to help us extend the life of our garments. That could include altering or repairing, renting out seasonal items, or reselling them.
To enable this, buying quality over quantity should always be the aim so our beloved items can stand the test of time. (Sustainable = sustain in time)
Build your style legacy
What we do with our clothing is actually our legacy. Yes, it takes more time and effort to find new and creative ways to extend the life of garments and buy mindfully. But the payoff for our wardrobes, (life)style, and the planet, are worth it.
With the digital wardrobe app of The Acquired, we created a tool that can do the work for you. By making the little effort of downloading the app, taking the style quiz, and uploading 10 items, it can help you build a sustainable wardrobe that fits your (life)style.
You can download The Acquired app in the App Store and Google Play Store.
