"I've just got out of a toxic relationship... with fast fashion"
Fast fashion is like a toxic relationship. Well, for me, it’s a dodgy ex that I have had to dedicate the last six years of my life to breaking up with. All the love is gone but, despite what the sustainable influencer community says, the truth is, breaking up was hard as hell.
My relationship with fast fashion
As a fashion student with a lifelong love of dressing up, the arrival of a plastic-wrapped parcel full of plastic clothes (oh, polyester is plastic, by the way) made me want to hug the postman. Nothing thrilled me more than a new discount code popping up in my email inbox, and flipping through magazine shopping edits before bed had me dreaming about my route through the high street the next morning.
A post shared by Ruth MacGilp (@ruthmacgilpblog) on Jul 27, 2019 at 6:39am PDT
Frankly, I was addicted to shopping. And not in a fun, glamorous, Confessions of a Shopaholic kind of way, but in a sad, skint, stressful kind of way. Once a week I’d come home with carrier bags (often from the various high street stores I worked in at the time - staff discounts are dangerous things), or wait wistfully at the window for that holy sight of the UPS van.
Putting aside the burning hole in my wallet and the hours of retail-tinged procrastination from my deadlines, fast fashion was a non-stop adrenaline rush of one night stands with cheap dates, bringing me comfort and short-lived satisfaction. But why exactly was the relationship so toxic?
Why it was toxic
While the items I bought rarely breached the £30 mark, the brands used bright lights and free delivery to distract me from a steeper, darker cost.
In 2013, when the Dhaka garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed killing over 1,100 workers, my heart broke as I watched footage of families searching for their loved ones. To my shame, though, it didn’t change the fact that the high street was my second home.
Now, governments around the world are declaring a climate emergency, and Extinction Rebellion is sounding a fashion death knell as the industry continues to create more pollution than all international flights and maritime shipping combined (yes, seriously). What’s more, just last year yet another garment factory disaster, reminding us, yet again, of the human suffering behind our passion for lightning-speed trends.
A post shared by Ruth MacGilp (@ruthmacgilpblog) on Mar 6, 2019 at 1:48pm PST
“So we need to break up.” Lauren Bravo, journalist/self-confessed shopping addict and author of 'How to Break Up with Fast Fashion', affirms. “For the planet, for humankind, for our own sanity, happiness and overdraft. And seeing as the high street isn’t likely to instigate the split anytime soon, the most immediate change needs to come from us. We’re going to need to do the dumping.”
It took me long enough, but educating myself on all that real pain and shame behind the covetable clothes eventually led me to the slow, sustainable alternative. It started with my own wardrobe - I detoxed from all high street shopping, and instead began researching exciting ethical brands and rekindling my passion for second-hand treasure hunting. Then, I turned the lens on the industry, and decided to make it my mission to try and change the narrative.
What finally shattered my complex love affair with fast fashion was realising that the contents of my wardrobe should never have held so much power over my emotions. Mentally unravelling every thread I’d connected between the outside and the inside was tough, but truly life-changing. Now my self-worth has nothing to do with ticking off trends.
Do you want to break up with your own toxic shopping habits? Good news: it doesn’t have to take as long as it took me, and it certainly doesn’t have to be as extreme (I created a whole career out of my new obsession!).
In fact there are three things you can do right now to start your path to fashion freedom - so strap in and rip off that plaster:
How to break up
1) Sign up for a shopping detox
Avoid buying anything new (second hand is still allowed - woohoo!) for a few weeks or months, and see how it feels. If you hate it, I grant you permission to resume normal service. But I doubt you will - shopping detoxes have powerful and sometimes surprising effects. The Fashion Detox Challenge suggests 10 weeks of cold-turkey, and encourages participants to write weekly diary entries to reflect on their experience.
A post shared by Ruth MacGilp (@ruthmacgilpblog) on Apr 23, 2019 at 11:45am PDT
2) Hit 'unsubscribe'
Take a look at your inbox and unsubscribe from any fast fashion brand newsletters. Sure, we all love a cheeky discount, but did we really want to shop in the first place before seeing that email? The same goes for social media - hit that 'unfollow' button on all the brands sitting pretty at the top of your feed. I also found that it helped to unfollow influencers who promote fast fashion.
3) Get clued up
There’s so much information out there to help you learn about the wonderful world of ethical fashion, including Lauren Bravo’s brilliant new book. But before you dive in, a great place to start is with an iconic documentary called True Cost. If you’re feeling a little confused on what the most pressing problems are, and what’s (not) being done to fix them, load up Amazon Prime and be prepared to get fired up about fast fashion.
Most importantly, remember that fashion is personal. What we wear has a Herculean hold on how we feel, and shifting our buying behaviour is no overnight fix. Like so many breakups, leaving fast fashion behind can be a long and messy process to say the least, but after experiencing the joy in this newfound singledom, I found it totally worth it.
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