The Power of Finding Your own Ethical Lifestyle
"Fashion is very important. It is life-enhancing and, like everything that gives pleasure, it is worth doing well.” — Vivienne Westwood
Style makes more of a statement than any fashion can muster from its rails of cheap colorful shirts and destroyed jeans.
Fast-Fashion emulates real style — rapid and shoddy pieces of clothing pumped out of a manufacturing process that needs to get a garment in front of the you as quickly as possible.
What you see on the shelves and racks in your local department store is a badly drawn idea of what you really want- but something inside tells you that it’s a great opportunity, and it’ll disappear off the shelves days after you bought it. So why do you buy it?
Lauren Hutton said that, “Fashion is what you’re offered four times a year by designers. And style is what you choose.” , today, the problem is that fashion houses are offering rapidly changing designs week by week.
Your sense of style is being bombarded with too much choice, too much social pressure, and to stay in this weeks fashion - and get ready for the weekend, ‘cause it’s gonna change before Sunday morning comes.
“Fashion is about dressing according to what’s fashionable. Style is more about being yourself.” — Oscar de la Renta
What you really want is something to wear,to keep you warm in winter, cool in summer, it to be an expression of the style and fashion you personally choose. Lifestyle is what we seek.
Fast fashion can’t help you there, but it can prey on your needs and insecurities. After pumping out the latest look, the message attached to the clothing, the idea, is that you can make do with what’s on offer, and tomorrow go look for some quality fashion and style garments that really do have what you want.
The problem is that the market has got you where they want you. The moment you start to consider what you personally want, you feel like you’re on your own. That’s a contrary feeling to what fashion is all about, so we do what we always do, we follow the crowds.
The fast-fashion market uses social confirmation to keep each customer coming back for more.
Doing what others do, offers us a false feeling of security and wellness. Unfortunately, fast-fashion as a key to happiness isn’t much better than a Sunday afternoon ice cream. The minute it’s in your hands, it begins to melt, and we’re thinking about the next little joy we can find.
Quality and style lasts. Textiles that are well made, wool fabrics that are woven into intricate patterns, herringbone through to solid looking tweed fabrics that create an expression of quality and luxury — that’s where style begins.
Fast-fashion has done an excellent job of taking all of the decision making out of your hands. They just want you to open your wallet and keep buying. The offers of dirt cheap mock-ups of colorful, consumable goods that we will throw away within months or weeks is creating an urgent problem on our planet.
“Fast fashion isn’t free. Someone, somewhere is paying.” — Lucy Siegle, journalist and author
The price of fast fashion is more than we can afford to pay. It’s just that, right now, we’re accumulating a huge debt that we will have to pay back in a very uncomfortable way.
“I think there is beauty in everything. What ‘normal’ people perceive as ugly, I can usually see something of beauty in it.” — Alexander McQueen
Dressing is an expression of your identity, and when you get that right, you walk into a social setting with a powerful confidence and dignity that you can’t find on the racks and rails of a store.
The thing is, you have to start thinking for yourself. To know what you want to wear, what looks good on you won’t look good on other people.
That’s what Alexander McQueen meant when he said that there is beauty in everything he sees — he knows what he is looking for, so should you. Think about it, you’re going to wear the fashion piece and live with it, so look for beauty and quality.
Isn’t the idea of dressing fashionably and stylish about beauty?
It is fun, and it can be frivolous without creating enormous waste to be dumped in our oceans and land fills.
The reason that retro fashion works well is that people recognize the quality of slow-made clothing that we wore in the past — then they want it, immediately.
The retro styles of the 1920s through to the 2000s gives us an enormous pallet choices to please every aesthetic.
The fun of searching and hunting for fashionable and stylish clothes from the past is a rewarding experience — just go ask one of the many who have started to do this.
Choosing your style has a lot to do with understanding what pushes your own buttons.
Once you understand what type of clothes make you feel good, fit your body, and which colors enhance your figure, you will start to see things in places where fast-fashion buyers aren’t looking.
The fun begins when you know what you want and you’re on the hunt. Looking for beauty and style in clothing is a powerful step in creating a lasting lifestyle that is driven by desire and choices.
Buying fast fashion month in and month out leads to lifestyle exhaustion — as if you are constantly trying to find something of value, but each item purchased is a disappointment.
Think about it, if you found something so wonderful to wear, it turns you on, it lights-up your social life, it just grabs you by the glee-buttons, that you just know it is beautiful, would you throw it away?
Take a good long look into the depths of your wardrobe, and you’ll start to see the opportunities to mix and match the garments that you habitually pass on. They are the little gems of creative possibilities that have waited throughout summer for your attention.
You will find a mix up of winter and summer hanging on your own rails. That’s the place where can see how you can enhance the whole picture with more quality and beauty.
The holiday season is coming, it won’t be long before you start to hear about early office parties, much too early warm up parties for the season where people like to flex their fashion feeling and strut their duds just for kicks and fun.
If you’re a fashion freak, a follower, or, “must have that top”, type of person, then stay clear of the stores, and get creative with what’s hiding in your wardrobe— it’s the fun factor in having racks of not yet worn clothes. The possibilities to create a new look, an outfit, are always a hand grab away, in your own wardrobe.
There’s nothing boring in your own collection, small or large, it’ll offer you the opportunity to get creative, create a solid view of what seems beautiful to you and give you the chance to work up the creative powers of your lifestyle.
“As a designer I like to work with fabrics that don’t bleed. That’s why I avoid all animal skins.” — Stella McCartney, fashion designer
Don’t be a slave to fashion houses, be a servant of your own style and work your way up. Learn about quality over quantity, think for yourself and find your style.
Identity and lifestyle create a fun, and meaningful moment that leads to a personal philosophy of being, living and finding your place in life.
