The effect of fast fashion on the environment is as wasteful as it can be on our wallets.
Now, one lifestyle blogger has taken the 'buy once, buy well' saying to the next level and hasn't bought anything new at all this year.
Lifestyle blogger Kate Hall, who goes by Ethically Kate, is just coming to the end of her year-long wardrobe freeze, where she went a whole year without buying clothes. She decided that for all of 2022, nothing new would enter her wardrobe, not even second-hand.
Her rules were that nothing new can enter her wardrobe and if she wanted to make an item of clothing, it must be with existing materials from her house. She ended up making two things. She is allowed to mend things and take them to her local seamstress for repairs and she can borrow items, which she has done three times.
Appearing on The Project, Hall admitted while she was never a full-blown shopaholic and the wardrobe freeze was a big challenge.
"Going from buying things, a few items a month… to suddenly nothing was a big change in January," Hall said. "But 11 months on and I don't feel like I'm missing out, I'm still clothed and I'm still stoked with my wardrobe."
She said she focused on caring for her clothes better and did a wardrobe audit in December last year to make sure she has all the essentials.
Hall said she would spend time in her wardrobe with her current clothes mixing and matching different combinations to keep the creativity of dressing alive.
"I am doing this for a reason. I think we consume too many clothes as a human race and so knowing that what I am doing was making a big impact," Hall said.
Watch the full interview with Kate Hall in the video above.