Chinese New Year is just around the corner! If you’re someone who celebrates this holiday, you’ll know it is time for spring cleaning and shopping for new clothes. However, the whole culture of “spring cleaning” and the constant cycle of buying new clothes every year encourages excessive consumerism and is extremely wasteful. Now, I am not suggesting that we completely do away with our yearly traditions. But we can adapt our cultural practices and change our habits to be less wasteful. So here are three ways to be more environmentally conscious with your clothes this Chinese New Year!
The main goal of living sustainably is always to reduce your consumption so that less is going into landfills. However, if you find it hard to not purchase new pieces, we can still reduce our waste by upcycling, thrifting or making environmentally-conscious purchases.
1. Upcycle your clothes instead of completely throwing them out
Rather than completely throwing away your old clothes, try to find alternative ways to wear them. For example, you can breathe new life into your old scarf by turning it into a cute crop top! If you’re good with sewing or don’t mind picking it up, you can also try making alterations to old pieces that no longer fit you, or flip those outdated items into something almost brand new.
Your old clothes can also be used in other ways: save them for future DIY projects or cut them up into rags that can be used for your spring cleaning.
2. Thrift your CNY outfits
This might be a little controversial, but thrifting or buying second-hand clothes is a great way to find new pieces and save some coins while also saving the Earth! A quick Google search will lead you to the best thrift shops in Singapore.
Alternatively, you can visit charity shops such as SSVP Shop or the Salvation Army. If you’re looking to get rid of some old clothes but don’t want to completely get rid of them, try Refash or Swapaholic! They both offer some form of clothes swapping services. You’ll be surprised by the sorts of treasures you can find. Even if you don’t find the perfect piece of clothing, you can flip it and turn it into gold.
3. Make good purchasing decisions if you must buy new clothes
If you really can’t break away from the tradition of buying new pieces every year, try to make good purchasing choices.
Think through your decision before buying something too quickly. This means, starting your CNY clothes shopping early and no last-minute purchases. Before hitting the checkout, sit on the decision for a couple of weeks. If you still want the item, then go right ahead! If not, you’d have stopped yourself from making a hasty purchase that you would have regretted.
In order to make sure that you get the most use out of your clothes, buy pieces that you’ll actually wear. Yes, it sounds obvious, but sometimes when we buy clothes, we don’t think about whether it’s something we’ll wear often, especially when it comes to shopping for festive seasons like CNY. Buying outfits for specific events can lead us to only wearing them for the event itself and then tossing them aside as the outfit isn’t appropriate for daily wear. Instead of buying pieces specifically for CNY, try to buy versatile pieces (a simple red dress for example) that you can wear throughout the year.
Lastly, if your wallet can bear the cost, opt for sustainably made pieces or clothes that are made with quality materials so that they last you a lifetime. Most pieces from fast fashion outlets have a short lifespan as they are poorly made. The cost of choosing sustainably made clothes over fast fashion eventually equals out when you consider the cost of having to replace pieces of poor quality.
In a nutshell, the best way we can be sustainable with our fashion choices is to reduce our consumption. But, if you can’t bear to not buy new clothes and stray away from traditions, you can still make environmentally-conscious decisions to reduce your waste and carbon footprint. Try these tips out and make a small step towards living more sustainably this year!