25 planet-positive shopping rules for the new season

Tiffanie Darke
25 planet-positive shopping rules for the new season

We all know fashion is broken and we have far too many clothes. But it’s that time of year, for new school shoes, new coat, new gym kit – who can escape the thrill of that back to school wardrobe re-up? So what are the rules?

BUY WHAT YOU LOVE, NOT WHAT YOU LIKE
If you want to try to cut your fashion splurges, consider this mantra: buy what you really need, buy what you really love, walk away from what you like. There needs to be strong and considered rationale behind buying any new clothes, not to mention unwavering desire. (Desire can ebb away quickly with time. Next time you see something you want to buy, give yourself a 14-day cooling off period. Still want it after a fortnight? Then it’s yours).

It is not fashionable anymore to wear head to toe new season, or even to capitulate to some of those legacy brands that have got fat and sweatshop-sick on growth (Loro Piana, Dior, Armani) or those that have been brought back from the grave in 100% polyester (Topshop). Dressing well is about doing it in as frictionless a way as possible. Treading lightly and carefully, in natural fabrics, considered craft and timeless design. 

BUY LESS, CHOOSE WELL, MAKE IT LAST
The words of the late great Dame Vivienne Westwood, and we should all pay attention.

Buying less is about freeing yourself from the tentacles of mass consumerism’s marketing machines. We have all we need; we really do. Each year there is a case for a few new things, and when you reduce the number of those things, their value to you will exponentially increase

Choose well: knowledge is power. Learn to ask the right questions, check websites and read labels. Know what a label is really telling you and understand what a price tag is indicating. Think about where each piece came from, who made it, how well-travelled it is.Think of the design, marketing, craftsmanship and fabric that have gone into each piece and then begin to layer on top of that how you might wear it – or if it is pre-loved, how those have worn it before you. Framing clothes in this way makes them treasures, and we can start to think about them like we do the contents of our jewelry boxes: timeless pieces of inherent emotional value and beauty.

Wear it for longer: reheeling a shoe, taking in a dress, shortening a hem, fixing a zipper, sewing on a button. All these acts of nurture and care are deeply satisfying, whether you do them personally or ask someone else to. Clothes are our friends, to be cared for and guarded for as much of our lives as we can manage

THE END OF TRENDS
And trends? Quite possibly, they’re dead. The speed of social media now means that TikTok and the like can cycle through multiple trends in a single day. We’ve got absolutely no chance of keeping up. As Daniel Lee, the creative director at Burberry, says: “I think we’ve moved on from the period in fashion where it was led by a silhouette or an aesthetic or a stylistic sense of putting things together. What people respond to is a singular object. My role is really to distill the essence of the brand into that object.” 

So leave trends aside and focus on something that communicates inherent beauty to you. This is wonderfully emancipating as now we no longer need to worry about being “in fashion”. Think about you – what suits you, makes you happy, feels comfortable. Style is evolution; it is progress. Listen to it, test it, enjoy it, play with it.

Focus instead on building a wardrobe of “faithfuls,” tried and tested pieces that you know suit you, are comfortable and will make a good impression

You might need a new coat, or to replace a black polo neck, or buy a new swimsuit, but those purchases aside, buying something new should feel like a rare treat. 

THE 80/20 RULE
The 80/20 rule of fashion is that 80% of our wardrobe should be essentials, the rest personality-led. I love this: you need those crazy coats and gowns that get everyone talking when you walk in the room, but you don’t need them all the time, or you would soon turn into Iris Apfel or the Widow Twankee. Likewise you don’t always want to blend into the background. Oh, the joy of a leopard print coat!

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11 STEPS TO GET YOU STARTED

1. AUDIT YOUR WARDROBE
Everything starts here. Until you do a proper clear-out, I’ll bet you can’t see the woods for the trees. You need to get in there, pull everything out and take a long, hard look.

Start by planning a date night – possibly an entire day – with your wardrobe, where you make yourself a delicious drink and set aside a few hours to really get to know each other. Have some conversations, don’t be afraid to ask hard questions. Then think about what works and what doesn’t. Why does it work? What are you missing? Can anything be given a second life with repair or alteration?

Are there some brilliant pieces that don’t work for you that you could swap with a friend? What could be taken to a charity shop after cleaning and repair?

2. Organise
Now think about how you can organise what you’ve got. Try an open clothes rail or sort your most hardworking pieces to the front and each week switch two less-worn pieces in to encourage you to style them in different ways.

3. Colours
If you have figured out what colours suit you, congratulations! Now break the rules. If everyone is used to seeing you in a muted palette of beige and black, wow them one day with purple or yellow.

4. Patterns and Prints

Be brave and clash them together. You just need one colour or motif to run through both patterns to help tie them together. Sometimes you have to break the rules to make them

5. Phone a Friend
Get someone else to style 10 outfits out of your wardrobe. Guaranteed, they will think of different things than you.

6. Use Makeup
A red lip, a green eye, well-manicured nails – just like jewellery, changing your polish every few days can switch up your look.

7. Use Fragrance
When I worked in the beauty industry, we talked about building fragrance wardrobes.

Far be it from me to suggest you swap one bad habit for another, but having a couple of different scents that you spray on different occasions or at different times of day can really help extend the idea of your appearance. It’s not all looks, you know

8. Write your own recipe for sustainability
Here’s mine:
Shop your wardrobe!
There are treasures buried there.
Only five new things each year.
And four pre-loved ones.
Rent.
Swap.
Borrow.
Choose some pieces for alteration.
Sort a pile to take to the menders.
Make something myself from scratch. Could I?

9. Locate your style and figure out a uniform with an 80/20 mix
80 percent solid essentials
20 percent outrageousness
Clearly, you can play with this ratio!

10. Invest in 10 easy pieces
The hardest-working pieces for your lifestyle, the wardrobe essentials you feel it’s really worth trading up for. For me, these are:
White shirt
Smart jacket
Comfy trouser
Playful knit
Everyday dress
Warm, smart coat
Good pair of day shoes
Good pair of boots
Warm knit
One set of exceptional underwear for those days 

11. Cut your emissions
Invest in a good home steamer so you don’t need to wash or dry-clean your clothes so much.
Skip one in six washing loads.
Wash half loads at below 30°C.
Substitute every sixth dryer usage with open-air drying.


HOW TO MAKE YOUR CLOTHES GO FURTHER

Ban seasonality. Summer clothes in winter – why not? Consider wearing a shirt dress open over trousers and a top as if it were a coat or layering a roll-neck jumper under a summer shirt or dress.

Disco for daywear. This is one of my favourites:

Don’t save your beautiful eveningwear for the night; style with denim or cotton and a pair of sneakers and march out into the day like you own it

Let your feet do the talking. One crazy pair of multi-colored sneakers, a pair of white ankle boots, some glittery pumps, a pointed red flat. You can wear a black t-shirt and pants every day with some talking-point footwear, and that is your fit, done. 

Borrow from a friend. We are all in this together. Make a pact with a friend or two to buy less and then arrange for some long-term loans from each other’s wardrobes. When you get used to the idea, why not swap? Or hold a swapping party?

Raid your mum’s wardrobe or your aunt’s or your granny’s. Who knows what those wise ladies have tucked away that they haven’t worn for years? Dig it up and phone a tailor

Double down on jewellery. I must confess this is how I survive my rule of five. My jewellery box is heaving with gems – sadly, not the valuable ones – and layering up two or three necklaces is a great way to elevate a simple white shirt. Likewise, a pair of statement earrings or even a wonderful hair accessory. Sometimes you just need a blank canvas for the details to shine.

Think about layering. A polo neck under a T-shirt under an open shirt, a pair of trousers under a skirt or dress. Just avoid the bag lady look.

Treat your clothes as accessories. The Europeans are very good at this. You don’t actually have to wear your clothes; you can treat them as accessories. You could:

Shoulder-robe a jacket or coat, which is a very Parisian way of looking chic. This involves not actually putting your arms in the sleeves but balancing the jacket/coat over your shoulders like a cape

Wear a jumper the cool girl way: tie a jumper around your shoulders, having one sleeve over your shoulder and the other under your arm before you tie it. Or if you have a tailored jacket or coat, tie a knit over the top like a scarf.

One hundred ways with a scarf. Oh, yes, there are many. Go to Hermès social media pages for inspiration; they have so much fun with different ways to wear their scarves. Your scarf doesn’t need to be Hermès (although if you see one second-hand – get it!) – just a square piece of anything will do.

Finally: wanting to look good isn't vain
Spend some time really thinking about your body type. What suits you, and what doesn’t? What do you enjoy wearing, and what don’t you like? What do you envy? Would it work for you? Who looks good? Why? For numerous reasons, this is not an exercise in vanity; this is an exercise in self-worth and self-love.

Looking good makes you feel good. We all know this, and enjoying getting dressed every morning can be a blissful part of your day. Add to this the messages you semaphore to others and suddenly you are in altruism territory. If you can do all this knowing that what you are wearing are consciously, ethically thought-out pieces that tell beautiful stories about the world, you will, of course, walk a little taller.

Extracted from What to Wear and Why, Your Guilt Free Guide to Sustainable Fashion by Tiffanie Darke. Now read Tiffanie’s BRiMM Journal piece on the individuality of second-hand shopping