Thrifting 101

Lets set the record straight about thrifting: It is not gross! Thrifting gets a bad rap because often the stores that offer second-hand clothing are cramped, not well merchandised and lets face it…there’s a certain odor to them. But if we let go of this snooty attitude and look beyond the appearances, we might see that there are treasures to be found.

Fabulous red shoes I found at a local consignment store -I've worn them to death

I have to be the first to come forth and admit it: I was once a thrift store snob. When we first moved to Canada and were introduced to a second hand store, I did not like it at all. My mom was in seventh heaven filling up her cart with all kinds of goodies and I could barely look in the racks. I was a typical seventeen-year-old mind you and not much impressed me. Eventually mom did convince me and I ended up with a couple of large sweaters to wear over my stirrup pants…(any clue as to what decade I’m referring to?)

It’s taken a long time and some necessity for me to embrace the gift of thrift. I started going to thrift shops to find used furniture and gadgets. I also shopped for my kids, because baby clothes usually don’t get used as long and they were in great shape. In fact, at one of my baby showers one of my friends gave me a huge box of clothing which she decided to buy used, so that instead of buying me one outfit, she was able to buy a dozen! This changed my mind about second hand clothing.

Another great find from the consignment store.

So changing your perspective about the smell and the fact that it has been used is the first step. The second step is getting past the merchandising. Usually these stores are not organized like the box stores where there are outfits put together or many sizes to choose from and everything is in beautiful colour stories. Most second hand stores are simply divided by sizes and category and if you are lucky sometimes by colour.  I know a few people who have told me that they get overwhelmed by the amount of pieces and lack of direction. There’s no clear trend here. You are on your own. You must rely on your own style and flare. And I believe this is what fast fashion has stripped from us, it has taken our ability to decide what looks good on us and dictated what is in style this season or even this week; making it difficult for many to stray from a style that is not flattering or does not fit our personality at all.

In a thrift store, however, once you start really looking it’s amazing what you can find if you have a good eye. And I think that’s the trick. You need to figure out what is worth it and what’s not. You need to look for quality, style and fit. So here are a few tips to happy thrifting:

This one came from Value Village!

1.       Spend the time: First of all, when you are just starting make sure to give yourself plenty of time. Once you become a ‘seasoned’ thrifter you can go in and pick a garment without a second thought, but at the beginning you’ll need lots of time to look through, inspect and very importantly: try on! There’s no point in buying something that does not fit or even worse: does not fit right! 

2.       Look for quality: this is where learning the difference between a good or bad sewing finish or what a high quality fabric content is, comes in handy. Sometimes looking at the brand name will help because there’s no denying that something made by a designer brand is usually better made than a garment from a fast fashion source.

3.       Style: Insert personality here. This is where you get to decide what you shine in. What are you most comfortable wearing? And I do not mean comfortable sweat pants! We are talking fashion pieces here. Things like line and shape or colour and texture. It does not have to be limited to only pants or skirts or dresses, but if you do prefer one of this categories, that says something about your personal style too. So do you like long and lean or do you like flouncy and delicate? Or is it loud prints and bright colours? Dainty florals or basic pieces. You decide. And once you know what happy looks like for you, then make sure it is flattering.

4.       Fit and a flattering look go hand in hand. Proportion plays a huge part in the fit of something being right for you. Look for things that fit your shoulders, torso and waist. Remember that hems and sleeves could be altered and some side seams could be taken in, but unless you have a basic understanding of alterations, make sure that the garment fits before you buy it. Otherwise you’ll never wear it again and you’ll curse your experience.

5.       Bring a buddy: This only works if you like a second opinion. But if you are a ‘solo’ shopper this might backfire especially if your buddy is on a time limit.  So on this note, don’t bring someone who’s not interested in being there: i.e. your children or husband.

   Most of all, have fun with it. In the famous words of Forrest Gump: "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get!"

Full (Closet) Disclosure

I just had three of my friends laugh out loud and give me the roll of the eyes when I told them what I did yesterday. I simply took an inventory of my closet. So I itemized each piece by category, country of origin, source and fiber content. So it is all in a neat 4-sheet excel spread sheet which include really beautiful pie charts and percentages (hey! On the upside I just learned to use a whole new part of excel that I didn’t know existed!) So it took me 3 hours yesterday, a couple at night and most of the morning to do it, so what! So, yes, I might be a type A (which of course I have to google because I don’t even know what it truly means). How I was able to still get the kids from school and make supper is nothing short of a multitasking miracle, but somehow I managed to pull it off. Now, I do not recommend doing this unless you have time to kill and a loose screw somewhere in your head.  But I really wanted to see where I was and what I have to work on. If I’m going to change my spending habits I needed to see what my habits were to begin with.  

I have to say that I expected to find some surprises, but some of the things that actually did, had never occurred to me. Things like the fact that I actually rarely look at the content label in my clothes! I just go by feel, and I was shocked at some of the contents I found in my most basics. There are things like a sweater in Polyester, Rayon and Wool mix that looks more like Wool and a pair of plaid pants that I swore were Wool which are actually a cotton/viscose mix (Apparently I need to review my wool feeler)! My Silver jeans are a mix of Cotton and Polyester and some of my basic T’s even have Rayon in the Cotton/Poly mix.

Why is this important, you ask? Well, I noticed that some of the most recent items have more fibers mixes than the older ones. How does this affect us as consumers? Well, for instance take a sweater that I thought felt like Wool, it is actually 90% Acrylic/10% Wool. Acrylic will pill and it is way less expensive than wool. It is also a synthetic fiber, which means it won’t break down like a natural fibre will.  Fabric suppliers are pushing synthetics with the excuse that it is cheaper and it makes the fabric last longer,  manufacturers like what it does to their profit margins, so they give the consumer the ‘feel’ of something high end at a much lesser cost and quality. Now, don’t go jumping to conclusions here, there is a place for polyester and nylon in our clothing, there’s no denying that it makes the fabric more durable and easier to wash, and there’s a definite benefit from that. But according to an article in 2004 Textile World, polyester production now exceeds 50 billion pounds a year, with China producing over half that volume[1], is it a coincidence that we are seeing it more and more?

That brings me to another finding on my chart. This one was not a surprise. A whopping 56% of my clothing came from China. Check out my chart. But you will notice that the next big number is from Canada and that includes handmade items. This is probably the hardest chart to change but working on increasing local numbers might be a start. 

The best chart by far was the one that outlines where I got the clothing from. It turns out that my frugalness leads up to sustainability. The fact that I welcome hand-me downs (you know who you are…thank you!) and that I occasionally shop at thrift stores, made up a large chunk of my sources for clothing.  Things that I make as well as my favourite pieces from artisan designers go under one of a kind. Chain midrange encompasses anything at the mall and discount/fast fashion are stores like Wal-mart or Superstore. What this chart did show me was that because most of my clothing comes from random sources, it makes it difficult to keep up a certain standard of quality and style. I think I need to be more intentional when making purchases rather than buying what’s on sale or taking everything that comes my way. 

Oh, do you want to know how many items I had? Well, I counted 90 pieces including all light jackets and fashion t-shirts. There were a few tank tops and T’s that were not worth mentioning because they are close to being pajamas. I also did not count any exercise gear or shoes or coats. But I’m guessing that you’re thinking that that’s a lot of clothing…well think again. My closet is barely the size of a hall closet and I have a 3-drawer dresser which houses unmentionables as well. So it is not big. According to Elizabeth Cline in “Overdressed”, the average (US) consumer buys about 60 pieces of clothing a year! She herself had over 300 pieces in her closet disclosure. Where do you rank? How big is your closet? What type of items do you buy? I would love to know…

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[1] Cline, Elizabeth, (2012)“Overdressed: the shockingly high cost of Cheap Fashion”, Penguin Group, NY

Savvy Swapping

My next post was going to be about organizing my closet. But it’s just going to have to wait because I want to share about the event I went to on the weekend. So I’m starting on my 10 month challenge with: Buy used and in this case, swapping. I had only heard about clothing swaps (aka clothing exchanges) in articles and books. The idea of it seems almost utopian: everybody brings clothing items that they no longer use and then swap them with each other. I always wondered how do you make it fair? Who would want MY unused bad clothing?

The first time I went to this clothing swap was three years ago when my friend Carmen invited me. When she told me about it, the first thing that came to my mind was, “Carmen and her friends have excellent taste! There’s bound to be some nice things there!”  But the thing that made this ‘swap’ different from the ones I had heard about is that she was doing it as a fundraiser. Three years ago, there was a famine in the Horn of Africa and the government of Canada was matching donations dollar per dollar. Carmen, being the passionate philanthropist she is, jumped on the bandwagon and somehow (don’t ask me how) came up with this idea. It was an instant hit. She raised $2800 and with the matching funds was able to donate to $5600 this cause. The next year people asked her to do the swap again, and so she did, and this time raised funds for something else. So this is how her ‘little project’ was born. I think it’s quite brilliant really, first, donations of gently used clothing are taken, then people come for the event and pay a donation to attend, then the swap consists of donations of $2, 5 or 10 per item or a bulk sum for a bag full. It is up to the individual what they want to give. The past two events took place at her house in the evening. Every single room of her home was packed with clothing and people trying on pieces wherever they could. It is not for the faint of heart, because things are not merchandised like in a conventional store and obviously there’s no size range. But for treasure hunters it is a dream come true. It is a similar feel as you would get going to a thrift store; it can be overwhelming because you may not find what you’re looking for or you may not even know what you’re looking for. So you must approach it in a different way than if you were at a mall store. You simply must be ‘open’. Open to find that jewel you didn’t know you needed, open to try something different and open to be pleasantly surprised when the something that didn’t look like much, became a new favourite piece once you tried it. Some of my ultimate faves came from the past two swaps. A work skirt that I absolutely adore and a basic spring/fall blazer. I also bought my daughter a spring raincoat that she loves.

So this time when Carmen asked me to be part of her team to help I couldn’t resist. Not only because it is an awesome event where you get to buy nice used clothing, but because there’s an underlying purpose: we are raising money to empower women. Oh and did I mention Carmen’s passion for social justice and fair causes is contagious. When I shared with her about all of the things that were inspiring me and how I felt I needed to make a change, all excitedly and encouragingly she said, “Why don’t you put something together and you can talk about it at the event?” So here we are, now I have a blog!

 This year “Fashion for Freedom” (as the event is now called) was moved from the inside of Carmen’s house to her beautiful yard. It hosted 75 women who enjoyed lovely refreshments and treats as they watched a fashion show put on with the same clothing available. How I ended up on the fashion show line up is simply beyond me. I am no model, but in a pinch, you become one! With the help of a team of very talented and generous women, clothes were sorted and hung onto borrowed racks which were arranged in the garden. A huge selection of shoes and handbags were also available as well as children’s wear. It turns out to be a wonderful afternoon of camaraderie and shopping all for the sake of a good cause. After the fashion show, shopping was open and three hours later $5100 had been raised and a bunch of women were sitting on a pool deck taking a well-deserved rest! This year 'the swap' raised funds for women and girls in Haiti and a special World Vision project for women in Congo. 

The hope for this event is that it will continue to grow and get bigger, but I think the best thing that comes out of it is that it inspires others to do similar things. I’ve talked to two friends since, who have mentioned it to their friends who are very excited to come to the next one or do something similar in their home town. How cool is that? You get a great ‘deal’ you have a fun afternoon with your friends and you’ve raised money for a good cause and hopefully you’ve inspired someone in the process. It’s a win, win situation.

What did I get this year? Well, I had to get the sweater that I modeled on the fashion show, because everyone said it was fabulous. But I also got two pairs of shoes and a couple of tops that so far have been a grand hit! 

Ingrid's Top Ten

Clarity of mind sometimes comes at 5:30 in the morning when I’m still half asleep! This is when some of my great thoughts go on to be forgotten because I don’t get up and write them down…this happened to me today and the only thing left from a brilliant thought was the word: clarity.

So I’m going with it and I’m applying it to the content of this blog because I feel it really relates to it. Ever since I started on this journey towards sustainability, I’ve been trying to figure out what I want to get out of it. What is my goal? I have also been trying to figure out a way to challenge myself into doing it. My first inspiration came from Sheena Matheiken who wore the same LBD (Little Black Dress) for one year in order to raise awareness about over consumption and in the process raise money towards a charity close to her heart. I love that! But somehow doing that again, didn’t seem quite right for me, at least not yet, I might do it later. Right now, my main focus is to explore as many possibilities of thinking slow when it comes to fashion as I can. And so finally I stopped trying to reinvent the wheel and did what comes naturally to me: I came up with a list. 

I love lists, ask my kids; they now make lists of their own. I have a packing list, menu plans lists, I make shopping lists, ‘to do’ lists and so on. So it made perfect sense when my sustainability list came to be.

This list is a compilation of other lists I’ve seen online, and my own.  Many of the articles I read, rang true to me but not everything on their list seemed appropriate, so I took the best of what I have seen and mixed it up with what I have learned so far, a little bit of my own intuition and voila:

INGRID'S TOP TEN WAYS TO BECOMING FASHIONABLY SUSTAINABLE: 

(I get a chuckle out of David Letterman’s top ten lists, so I have to have my own)

1.       Start with quality

           Get reacquainted with good finishes and quality fabrics… ask grandma

2.       Buy Used
           Consignment, thrift or swap

3.       Buy less

                  Quality vs. quantity.  Minimize to maximize: What do you love, what works and what doesn’t?

     4.     Buy Up cycled or recycled

            Re-vamped items or items made with used or vintage pieces

5.       Buy Vintage
           1920’s to 1990’s

6.       Alter Clothing

          Make things fit properly. Salvage broken goods.

 7.        Think Green

          Pick kinder, gentler options? Hug a tree?

   

8.          Get Educated

           Learn about corporations practices, hold them accountable. Find out who is making a difference and who's not.

      

9.        Shop Local

          Support local designers

10.      Make it yourself

          Just start small...

Not necessarily in that order, I will tackle each of these challenges in more detail one at a time and find out everything I can about it each month. And so it is that with the clarity of the challenges comes the clarity of the vision: at the end of the 10 months I hope to have become a better consumer and designer. I hope to be better informed and educated and in turn share that with those who are seeking that information too.

I want to invite you to join me in this challenge if you’d like and choose one of the above options. Send me your experiences and tips and if you’d like I’ll share them in this blog.

Slow it down

“Stop the world I want to get off!” was a lyric from one of my friend’s Steve’s songs. It always impacted me because at times I could totally relate to it. It seems especially true these days, when I feel like there are a million things coming at me and they are all coming at a massive speed. The juggling act that most of us are trying to pull would make a professional performer look stupid with a mere three fire-lit bowling pins.

But in the last few days as I dig deeper into this sustainability concept, it is becoming clear to me that it is not about stopping, but maybe simply slowing. Slowing the pace that we’re all going at. Slowing the need to achieve more, faster and maybe simply looking at what’s important and sitting there for a minute.

The term “Slow-food” has been around for a while now. The first time I heard of it was about ten years ago when my boy was a toddler.  My friend’s husband who is a chef was all over this, and it made sense to me: buy ingredients that are physically close to you and cook them the old fashioned way, do not use any shortcuts, and leave the products as whole as possible.

Professor Guttorm Fløistad summarizes the (slow movement) philosophy, stating:

“The only thing for certain is that everything changes. The rate of change increases. If you want to hang on you better speed up. That is the message of today. It could however be useful to remind everyone that our basic needs never change. The need to be seen and appreciated! It is the need to belong. The need for nearness and care, and for a little love! This is given only through slowness in human relations. In order to master changes, we have to recover slowness, reflection and togetherness. There we will find real renewal.” (from Wikipedia the free encyclopedia, Slow movement article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Movement)

The Slow Movement is very popular today and it is influencing other areas including fashion. There are some people who have started calling the sustainability of fashion: “slow fashion”. It is simple, in some ways it is almost just the opposite of fast fashion which dictates a new fad every two weeks and which made cutting corners acceptable in order to keep deadlines. But I think there’s more to it and this is what I’m trying to dissect.

The way I see it there are four different areas that will make a clothing product sustainable:

1.       Economic: How does it affect our economy? Are we able to buy local? Are we supporting our small businesses?

2.       Ethical: If not made locally, is it upholding the dignity of those who make it? Is it providing a job that supplies the person with enough to make a decent living? Is it putting the person at risk by working under conditions we would never tolerate in our part of the world?

3.       Environmental: Is it too much for Mother earth to handle? Does it break down? Is it eating away at the only resources that we have? Does it meet the three R’s (Reuse, reduce and recyle)?

4.       Extra Consumption: Is it serving our needs or our wants? Is it truly necessary? Or is it just adding to our "stuff"?

In some cases we’ll get all 4/4 whohoo! Call yourself a winner. In others we’ll barely scrape by with one. But I think the point is to strive to achieve all of them most of the time. And don’t get me wrong, this is probably the hardest thing I’ve set myself out to do, especially when I have a champagne taste on a beer budget. A lot of people have given me the look, you know, the one of ‘where are you going to buy stuff like that at reasonable price?” And the truth is that I don’t have an answer yet. I have found lots of sustainable fashion sites that have a fair amount of options, but a lot of them ARE more money than what I’m used to.

Yet, I am determined to keep on, to move forward and find answers. I know for instance, that one of the answers is simply to buy good quality used clothing. This is becoming increasingly harder because a lot of the donated items are often from a fast fashion source. But it is not impossible. Another answer is to shop more sporadically and buy investment pieces, something that is classic and will last for more than a year. And then, for some of us lucky ones there’s making our own clothes, starting from scratch, calling the shots of how it’s made and what it looks like.

There are many more solutions and it will only get easier once I start. Yet I think the main stumbling block for many of us is: convenience, it’s this need for immediate gratification and the need for the ultimate and greatest thing as fast as we can without even thinking about it. But the thing about convenience is that it is not always good for us in the long run. You just have to think about the convenience of having fries at a fast food place vs. the work it takes to go buy the vegetables and make something from scratch at home. Not as convenient, but definitely worth it.

Once we change our mindset to think “slow”, to think the way we used to, when everything had a process that we had to wait for, that made things worth it, then slow fashion will make sense.

Yes it is a big undertaking but not an impossible one. When you think of the waves that slow food movements (i.e. Jaime Oliver Revolution) have made in the last few years over the fast food kings, it is encouraging that we might be able to change the status quo in fashion too.

And in the process we might be able to slow down and smell those roses after all!

For more information on the slow movement check out Wikipedia’s description and sources, great information!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Movement

Dressmaking for picky clients...

I just made a dress for my youngest daughter. Mainly because she begged me to make her something when we were at the fabric store and she got to pick her own fabric. I don’t usually make my kid’s stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I would like to but it usually ends up in a fight over “creative differences” (which really translates into me not letting them have micro miniskirts or low cut cleavage tops –they are 6 & 8, for goodness sake!).

In any case I agreed to make a ‘sundress’. I had a pattern I had made previously and I knew it wouldn’t be much trouble to make.

As I was making such dress, I thought of a time long ago when mothers made their children’s clothes. Nowadays it is practically something unheard of. One of the reasons is because of the lack availability of good supplies such as fabric and notions. These items have become scarce because there is an increasing decline in home sewing so the demand is not there. Also, most fabric is no longer made in North America and with most of the mills overseas needing large orders we basically get the ‘scraps’. And the bottom line is most people are not learning how to sew because they don’t NEED to. It is simply cheaper to buy it!

Here’s the ugly truth, a dress like the one I made, could possibly retail at a store such as Wal-mart or another private label store for maybe $20 more than likely $15. Here’s the breakdown of how much it should retail for if I were a designer selling to a buyer.

My cost: Fabric: $10; Thread and notions: $.50; Pattern: $.25: Labour: $15.25 (Let's say it took me an hour to complete). Total: $26. Now, that’s just my cost. If I want to make some sort of a living I have to sell it at wholesale to cover some of my overhead and expenses. So the traditional mark up from cost to wholesale has been 100%, this would make the wholesale price of the dress $52.00. If that dress was going to a children’s boutique then the retailer would have to make his profit and charge typically double again at $104.00. Now, granted this is one dress which makes it more like a custom piece, and if you start making more than one your labour cost improves.

                                      

In her book “Overdressed”, author Elizabeth Cline talks about the decline of the garment industry in the United States (a story that’s not much different from the one in Canada). She interviewed several manufacturers who explained how the main cost of manufacturing clothing is the labour, therefore it is practically impossible for a domestic factory to compete with labour costs across the world. Cline mentions that in the U.S., sewing machine operators make typically minimum wage which is $9.00 or $1660 monthly. In parts of China wages for the same position would be $147 a month, and in Bangladesh where wages recently went up it would be $43 a month.  

I just rented a bike rack for my minivan, and I figured it would be a good idea to have it installed so it was correct. The cost of labour for the 10 minutes it took to put the hooks around my trunk was $15.00. I never even flinched or thought of bargaining for a better price. So, why is it unreasonable to pay a skilled machinist who can whip up a welt pocket in 10 minutes at least minimum wage?

Domestic manufacture in Canada is practically a minority. In the US it has gone from 50% in 1950 to 2% in 2004, according to Cline. I shiver at the thought of what would happen if suddenly these countries decided they did not want to take our orders, what if they decided they had better offers elsewhere and stopped producing. What would we do without cheap fashion? Could we go a few weeks without shopping? How about a few months? Where would everyone learn to sew in a jiffy?

And yet this is all too abstract for many of us to worry about. We just care that the cost of the garment is low so we can get more bang for our buck. But are we really getting more? Or have we all been duped into believing that we have the upper hand? Do we really believe that the massive amounts of jobs lost in the manufacturing sector have all been replaced by other types of jobs in the fashion industry?  

In the end I understand that things come down to dollars and cents. For a consumer on a budget it can seem black and white. However, I believe that there’s more to this story and this is what we’ll unfold. How can we be supportive of local economy and build it up thus creating more jobs while still getting a ‘bargain’? Well, I think it all depends on what we consider a ‘bargain’. And so this is what I’ll continue to discern.

In the meantime, I enjoyed making the dress for my daughter…even if after all that, she decided that while she loved it, it was much too itchy for her to wear…darn cheap fabric!