3 challenges when shopping sustainably

A sustainable wardrobe, something that more and more people are longing for. A closet full of honest, high-quality clothing that suits your personal style. Many of us still have an overflowing wardrobe, of which we only wear 20%. A closet full of poor quality clothes that we constantly have to fill up with the newest fast fashion trends. This puts you in a vicious circle. The old, worn items that are no longer worn are too dusty or end up in the textile waste pile and in most cases even in the incinerator. Why is it such a challenge to create a sustainable gadget? To make your life a little easier, we listed the 3 best-known challenges and solutions.

1. Do you experience these

“Sustainable clothing is too expensive.”

A lot of people still think that having a sustainable wardrobe is too expensive.

Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to look at this in a completely different way. Creating a sustainable closet, doesn’t always include buying from sustainable brands.

When you are more aware of what you are buying, you will notice that you will buy less clothing in the first place. This step will save you a lot of money. In addition, you will buy clothing of better quality, which will make the clothing last longer and will also reduce the time it takes to buy new items and thus also save you a lot of money. You will probably pay more money for this garment, but it often means that you will take much better care of it and that the garment will last longer as well. You will also take a more critical approach to the style of the garment. You will know for sure that the garment really suits you and you will enjoy it for a long time to come. This will prevent a lot of bad bargains and it will save your piggy bank from its death sentence.

You will also be less sensitive to all those tempting sales. If you know what you need, you will shop in a targeted way and you will not be tempted to just take something with you that you don’t really need because of the low price. Many people don’t know that buying second-hand clothes, taking better care of your clothes, or repairing your clothes, borrowing or exchanging clothes, are all ways to be more conscious about your clothes. Also all kinds of ways in which you don’t have to spend so much money or even nothing at all. Finally, we will also make sure that we select the brands that fit within your budget so that you too can have a sustainable wardrobe.

2. Do you have a unique and classy style?

“I can’t find any sustainable clothing brands that match my style”.

Many people are used to shopping at their favourite shops. They know that they will always find what they need and what suits both their clothing style and their budget. We’re used to buying something quickly in the store or ordering it online from our favourite webshop with fast delivery times, so we don’t feel like spending time looking for a webshop or shop that sells sustainable clothing brands. This makes the step too big for most people to put together a more sustainable wardrobe. This is exactly what we want to change. Soon you will be able to tell us all your personal preferences for putting together your ultimate sustainable wardrobe and we will show you the way. In addition, there are also many platforms where you can shop your favourite brands second-hand. These brands may not always be sustainable, but you make sure the garments get a second life and you don’t buy anything new, so you certainly don’t stimulate the production of new clothing.

3. Sometimes we don’t have a clue

“I don’t know what sustainable clothing is”

If your budget or style are not an issue, then it remains to be seen whether you know what to look out for at all.

How do you determine whether a garment is sustainable? For this, you can look at a few aspects. The label often says where the garment is made and what it is made of. For example, a garment made in Europe does not have to travel as far as a garment made in India. Some brands also have the Fair Wear Foundation quality mark. This means that the brand is working with this international organisation to improve the working conditions in its garment factories. If you want to go even further, you can depend on the information a brand provides on their website. Transparency is what you call it. Then you could also lookup in which factory the clothing is produced and whether this factory has the right certifications. For example, a factory may have received a certificate for the right working conditions or environmentally friendly production.

Whether a garment is sustainable is also determined by the type of material used and the production method used to produce it. Various quality marks have been created for this purpose. In total there are about 52 certificates, which all say something about the impact on animal and human welfare and the impact on the environment. If you want to know exactly which substances have which impact, you can compare all this very well in the overview of Environment Central or at Gent FairTrade. So you see when shopping sustainably, you have to pay attention to many different things. But we’ll make sure that you don’t have to do any more research at all. The only thing you have to do later is to indicate your personal preferences and we will make sure that you get the right clothes in a sustainable boutique that suits you. Wonderful, isn’t it?