I wasn’t always so good at shopping my closet. Before I started my slow fashion journey towards building a conscious closet, I had no style direction and lots of disposable income. This is a disastrous combination if you want to adopt slow fashion and/or have a conscious closet.
It was only when I quit my lucrative finance job and moved into a 700 square foot condo with my husband that I became uber intentional and creative with the limited amount of clothing, finances, and space I had. Before slow fashion was the buzz word that it is today, I was embracing a slow fashion lifestyle because all of a sudden, I had to live with some pretty strict limitations.
Those limitations are what enabled my creativity with clothing to thrive, and what forced me to find my personal style within a conscious closet. In addition to my personal circumstances, I started freelance wardrobe styling which was another exercise in creativity. When you show up on set with a limited number of clothing that you pulled, you have to be able to come up with anything a client wants.
So what does creativity have to do with slow fashion and building a conscious closet?
For me, everything. If you look back in history, some of the greatest inventions had their genesis amidst adversity and limitations. Why not reframe the narrative of shopping less from one of sacrifice to a creative challenge, and apply that same ingenuity to get more use out of what we already have in our closet?
There are a myriad of ways to approach slow fashion and build a conscious closet, but I believe that cultivating creativity is a wildly overlooked, yet incredibly important approach. Here’s why:
- Creativity shifts the focus from a need or want to problem solving in our closet
- A creative eye changes the way we see outfits on others: instead of fixating on a particular garment, it forces you to look at artistic or stylistic elements like colour, texture, pattern
- Creative confidence stops comparison in its tracks. Instead of lamenting our lack of style or lack of a specific piece, we reassure ourselves that we’ll figure out how to make something work with what we have
- Equally, creative confidence bolsters our sense of self-worth. Who cares if we don’t look like every other Instagram influencer?
- Creativity encourages us to try new things. Sometimes it doesn’t always work out, but i’ve always found that knowing what I don’t like, is a great path to figuring out what I do.
This is a seriously solid list of positives, which also happen to have a positive impact on the planet by reducing our consumption. But it can seem daunting if you’ve never looked at your closet this way before – so what are you waiting for? Buy a ticket to my live virtual shop your closet event.
It’s an interactive 90 minutes where ticket holders help me break down looks into elements of style, then together we shop the closets of two very different women. I believe that concepts are best understood when seen and done in practice, which is why this event is so impactful in learning how to see your closet in a different way, and make new outfits out of old clothes. Buy your ticket here, and I hope to see you on April 10th!
