Thrifty + Ethical Fashion

Like many of my 20 something-year-old friends, I have spent a good amount of the last decade of my life packing and unpacking boxes-aka moving ALL THE TIME. Let me prove it to you:

• Freshman year of college I moved into a dorm room at the University of Arkansas.
• Sophomore year I moved into the sorority house.
• The second half of sophomore year I moved into another room in the sorority house.
• Junior year, I moved back into the sorority house into a different room. Senior year, I moved into a house with friends on campus.
• 2012 (when I graduated college), I moved home for the summer, then moved to Searcy for the first year of PA school.
• 2013 (The second year of PA school) I lived back and forth between Greenwood and Fayetteville for clinical rotations.
• 2015 (The year after I graduated PA school) I moved to Houston for a year long Fellowship.
• 2016 (After I was done with the fellowship) I moved back home to Arkansas for a few months, then to a one bedroom apartment west of Denver to begin work at Ardas.
• Fall of 2016 (when Heath and I got married) we moved into the same place in DENVER, Colorado FINALLY.

I started college when I was 17, and I am turning 27 this September. That means (and this is actually just now hitting me), in a decade I have literally moved every. single. year. (AT LEAST). And that is not even counting a 6-week clinical rotation in Mountainview AR, a clinical rotation in Uganda, a summer in China, and a few other summer and spring break trips to other countries. I know, right? Exhausting even to read about. But I know I am not the only one and that many of my friends have been similarly nomadic. It’s just what you do at our age, right?

This frequent moving has allowed me to be confronted (at least yearly) with my stuff. Each time I moved, I tried to down size and live with less than I had before. I found that the things I actually need to live are much fewer than I had previously thought. This along with time in developing countries where people live with WAY less than we do has given me a foundation in which I greatly appreciate simplicity and a less-is-more approach to stuff.

Working with refugees also solidifies my desire to live with less. The families we see have left most all of their belongings (and even family members) to come to the United States. They don’t have a lot of stuff, and (at least at first) the idea of accumulating a lot of things is very foreign to them. They have large families (I recently saw a family of 12) and often squeeze these large families into small apartments and houses. The kids share the bedrooms and the parents sleep in the living room. The cost of living is expensive in Denver, so I fear that even this current living situation for them will become even more strained.

The now trendy topics such as minimalism, capsule wardrobes, and tiny homes show me that I am not alone in my desire to simplify. Young people in our culture are, like me, craving a less-is-more approach to life. While capsule wardrobes, minimalism, and tiny homes may get a bad rap and have words like “trendy” or “millennial” attached to them, I sincerely hope they will become more of a way of life than a trend for our generation. I think the newfound passion for this simpler way of life shows that our culture needed a change and that young people are finding creative and practical solutions to our excess of stuff.

Disclaimer: I absolutely don’t believe these solutions are an end-all-be-all to our idolatry of stuff and I recognize there are stumbling blocks to minimalism/simplicity/tiny houses/capsule wardrobes (we can idolize our lack of stuff just like we idolize our stuff). I am simply stating that I have found a tremendous benefit to simplifying. It has enriched my life and fits holistically with my worldview and I believe others have found similar enrichment through simplifying.

Clothes are one of the first things I have made an effort to simplify. For me, living with a lesser NUMBER of items to wear fits with my career (in serving refugees), with my religious convictions (in not being attached to accumulating things on earth), and practically it helps me to devote more time to people and activities that I love (less time washing, drying, hanging, ironing).

With the help of bloggers (Unfancy, Style Bee) and books (The Life changing magic of Tidying up and The More of Less) I have gained practical help & resources in my journey of simplifying. On this road, I have tried to simplify to a smaller amount of clothes in my closet.  But, beyond focusing on the number of items, I have learned the importance of buying quality over quantity in order to have items that last and the importance of buying ethically made clothing. Although I can NOT afford the MOST high-quality items ($$$$) I CAN choose well made and ethical items for my home and wardrobe whenever possible.

This year I have been developing a thrifty + ethical wardrobe with a minimal number of items. I am doing this by wearing only second-hand clothes, ethically made new clothes, things that I already have (as I build up staple ethical items), or gifts from friends and family. I am becoming okay with repeating a lot of outfits or wearing the same pants 3 or 4 days out of the week (most of the time we do this anyway right?). I want to share with you some of my summer thrifted + ethical capsule wardrobe and a challenge that I am starting TODAY! – maybe some of you will want to join me in the challenge?

Two of the blogs I previously mentioned (Un-Fancy & Style Bee) collaborated earlier in the summer to do a 10×10 wardrobe challenge. I didn’t discover it until it was almost over, so I am doing it just a bit late..and calling it the “late summer 10×10” The 10×10 wardrobe challenge means you pick 10 items and wear just those for 10 days!

Here are my items for the 10×10 and also some of my favorite pieces from my thrifted + ethical capsule wardrobe. I really love how this challenge puts some fun and creativity into living with less.

Item #1: Cotton Poplin Culottes in Black These are my favorite pants that I wear at least 2-3 times a week to work, I also wear them on the weekends some too!

Item #2: Stretch ponte skinny pants in black.  These are great skinny pants for work and weekends.

Item #3: Embroidered Free People Top. I found this Free People shirt at a secondhand store in Denver for likely 1/4th of the original price.

Item #4: Madewell Silk Shirt in Purple. I found this one at a local secondhand store also.

Item #5: Thrifted Trapeze Top, Local Denver thrift store.

Item #6: Plain White Tee from Everlane  

Item #7 (not pictured): Red and White short sleeve button up, thrifted

Item #8 (not pictured) Olive cardigan, already owned

Item #9: Old Navy Camel Colored Heels (already owned)

Item #10: Plain black (very worn) flats (already owned)

Follow along on my @vineandventure instagram to see my 10×10 thrifty + ethical wardrobe outfits!

Here is a list of some of my favorite resources for thrifty + ethical fashion:

Everlane — really great basics. They tell you where exactly the item is made and how much the production cost is. I love this company. My favorite weekend travel bag is from here and my two favorite work pants.

Sseko Designs — shoes, bags, accessories (and now APPAREL) that help women in Uganda go to school, love this company! If you use the link from my page, you can get a $15 coupon for spending $50!

Fashionable —love FASHIONABLE! Beautiful leather bags, jewelry & other goodies… all made by women locally & globally who have overcome extraordinary circumstances. Check it out using my link: http://fashionable.refr.cc/rachelgordon & sign up for their emails to get $10 off your first purchase! August 15th they are launching their ethical denim line! hooray!

your local secondhand shop, your friend’s closet (do a clothing swap!), mother’s closet, grandmother’s closet. Really, get creative and reuse some clothing that is gathering dust!

Another thing I am trying to do is learn to mend and sew some of my own clothes (this is a long term goal of mine and something I am making small steps toward). Hopefully one day I can have a few items thrifted + a few items new and ethically made + a few items homemade!

I want to know…. Do you buy thrifted clothing? Have you heard of capsule wardrobes or ethical clothing before? What are some of your favorite ethical clothing resources?