These days when you are looking to give your wardrobe a Spring refresh, it’s important to look around at the trees, flowers, skies, and lawns and ask yourself, “how can I improve my wardrobe while also honoring Mother Earth?” That’s right: I’m talking about sustainable fashion!
Use the 25 Wears Rule
It is a hallmark of sustainable shopping to ask yourself if you will wear something 50 times before you buy the thing. Now that you’re living with your girlfriend, she’s actually free to buy things she might only wear 25 times, because you will help her and also the earth by wearing it the other 25 times. So in a way, you are doing her a favor.
Wear Clothes Through All The Seasons
If you run hot and your girlfriend runs cold, you can make her wardrobe more sustainable by wearing her short sleeve t-shirts while she is still wearing long-sleeve t-shirts. That way her long-sleeve t-shirts won’t go unworn for an entire season, which is wasteful.
Wash Your Clothes Less Often
According to the Energy Saving Trust, washing accounts for 60%-80% of a garment’s total environmental impact. Your girlfriend might insist that she needs to wash her shorts before wearing them again because she ran a 5k in those leggings without underwear. But you like to wear underwear when you run, so you can go ahead and give those another wear. Your girlfriend might make a face but your mother earth will say “thank you!!!!”
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Back of young woman walking on street road sidewalk in Miami, Florida with sweat wet shorts swimsuit after swimming in hot summer by palm trees](https://www.autostraddle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/shutterstock_1939311970.jpg?resize=1200%2C800)
Stop Buying Fast Fashion
Fast fashion is bad for the earth. Stop buying fast fashion when the fastest way to adorn yourself in new fashion is to take clothing right out of your girlfriend’s side of the closet and wear it whenever you want to. The only thing cheaper than a $10.13 Summer Casual and Loose Knot Strap Pinafore Green Short Romper from Shein is a $FREE romper from your girlfriend’s closet.
Avoid Buying The Same Hoodie Twice
Recently, I fell in love with my girlfriend’s hoodie. I wanted to wear it all the time, but unfortunately it did not belong to me technically yet. (We are moving in together right now as you read this, so the tides are about to turn!) So I went ahead and bought myself a hoodie in the same style, but a different color (a color that is more flattering to me than her hoodie, because my skin tone is “ghostly Victorian child muppet” and hers is “lifeguard”). Now when I wear my hoodie and she wants to wear her same hoodie, she is like, “we can’t both wear the same hoodie.” “Yes we can!!!” I tell her. “We are twins!!!! Twinsies!!! So cute like sisters!!!!” and then she looks at me like she probably wishes she’d just let me steal her hoodie from her closet so we would never have to suffer this embarrassment on a walk around the block, which would have been the more sustainable option.
So go ahead and take that jumpsuit!!!!! Your future children will thank both of you!!!!!
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