How To Make Your Closet More Sustainable

We’ve all been there; standing in front of our closet, not knowing what to wear or what to match with those new shoes we just bought. Add on top of this the task to make this mess of a closet more sustainable, and I think you have one of the most daunting tasks ever designed for humans.

Since I know how hard it can be to make clear decisions, we tried to simplify this process to a few easy steps which help you change your vanilla, dusty closet into a cool, sustainable one.

Think of this guide as Apple Maps, it does bring you from A to B most of the time, but there are no guarantees that it will always work, and you can’t hold me responsible for it ;).

1. Buy Less
Okay, this might be a bit too obvious, but it is very true. Most clothing has become so cheap these days that it is easy to buy something without giving it much thought at all. If clothes were more expensive, we would for sure give it more thought if we’d actually need the item. One way to trick yourself is to ask yourself if you would buy the item if its price was 10x more. That way you don’t fall in the trap of mindlessly filling your cart up. Cheap prices also make it easy to throw clothes away, which is causing a lot of pollution. Another way to avoid this is by patching up some of your clothing that might have been damaged.

2. Buy Vintage
While washing your clothes still has an impact, you can minimize your impact by buying second hand or vintage clothing. Since we got all these old trends such as fanny packs coming back around, it’s always a good idea to visit a second-hand store when the urges to shop arise from the depths. This way, you reduce the demand for new clothes and thus help reduce the overall impact. See if you can avoid polyester since that will still pollute a lot, even though it might be vintage.

3. Buy Sustainable
Of course, we all like to buy new goodies from time to time. I’m not going to pretend that, that isn’t the case, because I like me some goodies too. Well, that begs the question: where do I find sustainable clothing? Organic this, local that … it’s easy to get lost in the world of sustainable clothing. Luckily, there are some platforms like Project Cece, Good on you, Shop Like You Give a Damn, and Aequem that can guide you to towards your next favorite piece of sustainable apparel.

There’s also Rankabrand, which ranks brands according to their sustainability. Basically, these initiatives have done all the heavy lifting research for you and filter different brands, so you can make better decisions. Good stuff!

There are also other awesome blogs that you can check out for inspiration, like this one about sustainable sportswear from unsustainable magazine.

That’s our little guide to set steps towards your own sustainable closet. If you have some tips to add to this, feel free to comment them below, so others can check them out as well.

Alright, that was it for this Future Friday! We wish you all a great weekend and see you again in two weeks!