Slow Fashion: Everyday Wears

For the past few years, one of my goals has been to start swapping out fast-fashion clothing for slow fashion clothing. There is a wide variety of benefits to choosing a slow fashion lifestyle. The benefits of a slow fashion life include less waste, higher quality/timeless products, and the products themselves tend to be more sustainably made which is better for our planet.

For us, personally, slow fashion also has space benefits. If you are familiar with our lifestyle in Laguna Beach, we live in a tiny, one-bedroom studio. That means we have an equally “tiny” closet. As a sustainability advocate and a passionate student of sustainable practices, I realized how much space and waste was in my closet. I began to examine my clothing choices and came to realize that how I purchase clothing really matters. Pursuing a slow fashion, sustainable clothing product lifestyle, not only helps me decide on higher-quality clothing, but I also choose the clothing I really want to wear more often. This eliminates the amount of unnecessary clothing in my dresser drawers and closet.

My Experiences With Fast Fashion

So here’s a little bit of my background. When I graduated from college in the Midwest, I moved straight to California to live with my family. They moved to the West Coast right after I graduated high school.

When I arrived in California, I landed a job in the cosmetic industry at Nordstrom. At the time I loved it. The fashion, the trends, the brand names, it was all there! However, after a few years, I started to learn more about how my fashion choices made an impact. The impact was everywhere from my health to my pocketbook, to planet Earth. By choosing a fast-fashion lifestyle we are supporting a huge amount of wasteful products made with materials that aren’t always sourced sustainably. I was also chasing a moving target since fashion is always changing and keeping up with the newest trends was hard work. On top of it all, I was contributing to manufacturing processes that endangered our planet. I decided it was time for a change.

Evolving To Slow Fashion

Realizing the impacts of a fast-fashion lifestyle, I decided to transition to slow fashion. One piece at a time, I started to swap out my closet with sustainable, long-lasting, pieces. My rule is that when one new piece comes in, one or two must go out. However, with the new sustainable fashion pieces, they will last much longer than the piece they replaced.

In the spirit of reducing waste, I donated my clothes to the local thrift shop. Some of the clothes were really nice, they just didn’t serve me anymore and I wanted to update my wardrobe to what I enjoy. What I enjoy today will also be enjoyed long into the future. If you are familiar with the phrase “buy it for life”, it’s a good mantra to focus on with slow fashion. These clothes last so much longer and are much durable that you could actually buy them for life.

With the transition to a slow fashion lifestyle, I also needed to focus on not being perfect on my journey. It’s too easy to adopt a lifestyle in a moment, spend a ton of money right away and put yourself in a hard position. For me, I wanted to make this adoption slowly, so I could be mindful of the process and not break the bank. Being financially accessible is a balance and finding that balance helps you keep the process up for the long term. Sometimes this means only one or two “investment” pieces per year.

A New Sustainable Clothing Brand I Love

While I was researching sustainable brands, and clothing, I ran across a brand from the Midwest called Conscious Clothing. I have to shout out and say thank you to Ashley from Whimsey & While for first introducing me to Conscious Clothing. Conscious Clothing is a brand with timeless, sustainable, classic clothing that fits any style. The pieces are sustainably created, durable, and beautiful. The best part is you can get creative with each piece of clothing because they interchange easily with one another.

What I Love About Conscious Clothing

What I love most about Conscious Clothing is that their pieces are ideal for wearing every day. Whether you are going on a nature walk, gardening, going to the farmer’s market, etc. The clothing they make is the definition of slow fashion. All of their clothing pieces are sustainably made, dyed with natural dyes and made from natural textiles. They are also very durable and can be re-used and worn for a very long time.

The clothes that I have from Conscious Clothing are cozy, comfortable, and wonderful to wear. I also feel good about the clothing knowing that it’s good for the planet as well and all-natural on my skin.

The pieces that I am wearing are the Cairo Dress, in Russet in size M/L, and the Berlin Bodysuit in Black, size M paired with the Hemp Fleece Timberline Cardigan.

I want to extend a giant thank you to Conscious Clothing for gifting me these beautiful pieces. The pieces I was gifted I absolutely adore and have worn multiple times. Each time I wear a piece I fall more in love with it.

I also want to say a huge thank you to my dear friend Kaori who took the photos and shared her beautiful responsibly harvested garden white sage with us! She did an amazing job and made my editing process much easier. If you have any questions about slow fashion, sustainable living, or Conscious Clothing, feel free to reach out in the comments below or in Instagram (@mytinylagunakitchen). I can’t wait to share more sustainable living tips!