The Fashion Editor: the 5 things I'm buying
The Financial Times Fashion Editor Lauren Indvik joins the campaign, and names her 5 items for 2023
Welcome to Lauren Indvik, the Financial Times Fashion Editor, who has hopped on the Rule of 5 bus, committing to only buying five new items this year. You can read Lauren’s piece in the FT here, where she models a wisely chosen wardrobe of sustainable and classic items. If you can afford it, hers is a style to follow if you are looking for keepers: Gabriela Hearst, (luxury’s most sustainable and wanted), Another Tomorrow, (slightly more affordable than Gabriela, and just as conscious), Margaret Howell, (classic and incredible quality), The Row, Rachel Comey and also some flea market and preloved finds.
Lauren is allowing herself 4 preloved items as well as 5 new, which makes it slightly more do-able and no less effective. In fact The Hot or Cool Institute, the climate think tank behind the numbers, fudges the preloved element. They say 20% of your wardrobe should be preloved, but urge us not to go mad with second hand shopping as the idea is to just have less clothes in circulation. Personally, I think I’ll follow Lauren’s lead.
She also suggests some other ways we can radically reduce our footprint: washing our clothes at a lower temperature, and less often. Remember if you buy garments made from natural materials, you will sweat less in them. Also I love this technology from Pangaia, who use a special peppermint treatment on their cotton T-shirts and sweats to make them stay fresher for longer. The report also suggest the lifeline of each of our garments should be 8 years and 9 months, at minimum. This really makes you think about quality. And it should really make brands think about quality too.
“Given what’s at stake, reducing our fashion purchases is not a big ask,” says Lauren. “Fail to keep temperatures from rising above the 1.5-degree mark by 2030, and we’ll be pushed past environmental tipping points from which there is no return. Cities will flood, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef will largely die off and an estimated 100 million people could be thrown into poverty.”
Congratulations to everyone in this community for leading from the front. Here are the five items Lauren has earmarked for herself this year, having assessed her wardrobe and identified the gaps. I’m thinking about mine, having successfully survived January without shopping. What are you thinking about yours? (This is the fun bit!)
