If you haven’t checked out vintage clothing and accessories lately, you really should. There are some pretty things out there. You can go hippie or goth, or pair some current circa 70s Italian pumps with a sleek 1920s brocade spaghetti-strapped cocktail dress that catches the gawk. Vintage clothing can be hip, stylish and new. Each one-of-a-kind outfit says ‘you’, and it often comes at a very edifying trace. With all that cushy indulgence, you wouldn’t reflect you were also doing the earth a trustworthy turn. But have you ever conception about how powerful clothing ends up in the landfill?
In the U.S., we throw out about 254 million tons of unwanted items every year. Of that, about 7% is clothing, shoes and bedding. That’s about 18 million tons per year. If unbiased 1% of that were womens clothing, that would be, roughly, very roughly, about 40 outfits per woman, per year.
Some of those outfits are vintage clothing that others would be very gay to glean their hands on. I, for example, have made some vast finds. A crisp white linen suit that sold initially for $400 was mine for $50. Handmade Italian shoes in ice-cream colors of pistachio, raspberry and lemon for $25 – they’re tranquil my common. A full-length beaded gloomy velvet opera coat – looks expansive with jeans, too – for a pittance of its value. And how about that fabulously flowing silk pantsuit that makes me feel like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s? And that’s honest the beginning.
Not until someone brought it to my attention did it ever occur to me that my pleasing opera coat would be left and forgotten in a landfill if it weren’t in my closet. But now that I’ve had my eyes opened, I can recognize forward to my vintage clothing shopping sprees with even more enthusiasm – and less guilt.
Want to go green? Go shopping! But compose certain you’re shopping for vintage fashion – you’ll glance stout and assign the energy, raw materials and other resources weak to build current clothes.