How much money do you waste on clothes you don’t wear?
Leading Fashion Stylist, Cristina Holm, challenges you to total up the £££’s spent on unworn clothes.
The other day a new client and I went through her wardrobe. She roughly added up the cost of all the items that she had hardly worn and was unlikely to wear again, or had never worn.
It came to over £3000! She was astounded.
As she had been saying earlier how she couldn’t afford to go on holiday, it really made her think.
Unfortunately, I was less surprised. This happens with pretty much every new client I visit.
What a waste of her well earned cash. Though that’s not the only waste.
Setting aside this financial waste, the global fashion industry is now responsible for as much as 10% of our planet’s total carbon emissions and tragically it’s increasing.
So, it really is time to address our buying habits when it comes to fashion.
My aim is to help educate my clients into buying garments that as a Personal Fashion Stylist I know will suit them and specifically their body.
Why does that matter?
Here’s the thing, if you look good in what you wear, you’ll feel good in what you wear, and unsurprisingly, you wear these clothes more often and for longer.
Yet to do this you need to understand what suits your unique shape in the first place.
“Whether you blame it on fast fashion and changing trends or attractive discounts triggering impulse purchases, here in the UK we only wear between 40% to 70% of the clothes we buy. That means 30% to 60% of the clothes in our wardrobe – is money wasted. Ouch!”
At this point you may ask why your shape has anything to do with the clothes you don’t wear in your wardrobe
I am going to tell you that it has virtually everything to do with it.
With no two bodies the same, a garment or outfit that may look great on one person may not suit the other at all, even if they wear the same dress size.
That’s because the unique measurements of each part of our frame determines which styles of clothes complement us.
After so many years as a Personal Fashion Stylist than I dare remember, I have worked with women of all shapes and sizes and every budget.
I know that the majority of unworn or unloved clothes in wardrobes remain unworn not because the clothes are of poor quality or ‘not stylish’.
It’s because they just are not right for this person’s unique body shape.
Bearing this in mind, it doesn’t matter if you spent a fortune on a designer garment in your wardrobe, trust me, it will not magically suit you one day if it doesn’t suit your shape today.
“Extending the life of clothing by an extra nine months or another season could reduce carbon, waste and water footprints by around 20–30%.”
I love fashion for all the good and joy it brings (which is why I love to do what I do).
However I am horrified by the negative environmental impact of unworn fashion.
So, I’m also on a mission to fix it.
According to a recent parliamentary paper, increasing a garment’s life (i.e. how long / often it is worn) is one of the most effective means of reducing the item’s environmental footprint.
For example, extending the life of clothing by an extra nine months (or for another season) could reduce carbon, waste and water footprints by around 20–30%.
With this in mind, setting aside the benefits of saving money by creating a wardrobe you wear, never has it been more important than to focus on buying clothes which complement our shape.
Which is why I am here to help.
However… another fascinating fact is that less than 1 in 3 women correctly know their own shape. Which are you?
The good news is you can find out in a matter of minutes. You just need a tape measure, ideally a friend (or pop into your local fashion store and ask the assistant to help) and then, 3 core measurements later and My Secret Stylist will tell you.
Together we can make a difference
If you are already familiar with my company, My Secret Stylist, you will know that I established the business to help women source clothes that suit their unique bodies.
I combined my skills as a leading Personal Stylist with a team of technical experts to create an online ‘AI enabled’ fashion store that provides the user with the next best thing to having me on hand 24/7, 365 days a year, whenever they buy clothes.
The ‘artificial intelligence’ is a digital version of my knowledge and expertise.
It’s me but at the speed of a machine and wonderfully automated so it’s affordable to all.
My passion is to help women everywhere, of every shape, size and budget – find clothes they look great wearing.
This means my advice must be unbiased. That’s why we take zero commission from the brands we support.
The app works on your browser and is designed for ease of use on your mobile phone as well as a desktop. It simply guides you towards styles which complement your unique shape.
Clothes you can buy, across all the popular brands, all in one place. Think of it as a fashion website – designed just for you!
Designed with ‘savings’ in mind too…
Saving you time shopping.
Saving you money as you avoid purchases you later regret.
Saving our planet from having to suffer all that unnecessary waste.
Simply by looking and feeling great with a wardrobe you love to wear.
Together we can make a difference. So, please join me and lots of other likeminded women in changing the way you shop for clothes.
Not only will you find out your shape, you can also quickly find clothes in styles you can buy, that you’ll look great wearing.
Visit My Secret Stylist here for more information:
UK Fashion Waste – Further Facts
Did you know… the UK spends more money per person on new clothes than any other European country, and five times what we did in the 1980s.
Each year the UK produces more than 200,000 tonnes of textile waste.
Out of the 3.1 kg of textile waste each Briton produces every year, only 0.3 kg are recycled and 0.4 kg are reused.
However, 0.8 kg (more than a quarter) are incinerated yearly per person and 1.7 kg (more than half!) disposed of into landfills.
Which is just more good reason why we need to create a wardrobe that’s more eco-friendly.
That’s why my motto is:
Buy better. Wear more often. Waste less.
*www.parliament.uk – Textile Waste and Collection/Circular on-line
Cristina Holm
Cristina Holm is one of the UK’s leading personal stylists. Cristina is based and operates from her studio in Warfield, Berkshire (United Kingdom). She serves clients locally and internationally.
Cristina is also the founder of My Secret Stylist, the UK’s best kept clothes shopping secret. For only £35.99 per year, you can find and ‘see in seconds’ clothes which complement your body shape across all the popular brands. For more information, go to www.mysecretstylist.co.uk