Start Your Sustainable Wardrobe With Classic T-Shirts

If you opened your closet today, how would it compare to the closet you opened one year ago?

What about one month ago?

Whether you update your wardrobe regularly or have been putting it off that upgrade for way too long, you must be eager to refresh. 

And a sustainable wardrobe can be the perfect refresher now and always.

 

What is a Sustainable Wardrobe?

The concept of a sustainable wardrobe has been growing in popularity since the early days of environmentalism. When it became apparent to the public how destructive the fashion industry was to the planet, the sustainable wardrobe movement was born. The movement raised awareness about destructive practices and looked for ways to return to nature to produce truly organic clothing.

While making the shift to sustainable fashion is simple, it’s not easy. Growing organic crops takes hard work, innovation, and ultimately a higher financial cost that shows up on the price tag. Because of the price alone, many shoppers stick to their regular habits of buying inorganic clothing.

Without realizing the impact it’s having on them directly. It almost goes without saying that sustainable fashion is healthier for the planet, but what if we examine how it affects the consumer?

Smart shoppers see organic clothing as an investment opportunity. That’s why smart shoppers spend a little more on high quality T-shirts for example. In the short-term, high quality T-shirts feel better to wear than medium quality or low quality T-shirts. In the long run, they know high quality T-shirts will save them time and money. 

 

 

Break the Buying Cycle

A medium quality T-shirt might feel fresh at first, but how long does that freshness last? Only as long as it’s made to, which might be a season or two. Even if that T-shirt was 100% cotton, if it wasn’t organic cotton, chances are the manufacturer used chemicals to soften the fabric, which wears off in the wash, unlike organic cotton which is naturally soft because the plant was grown with more care and healthier. 

So the freshness of a medium quality T-shirt wears off just in time for you to buy another medium quality T-shirt during the next big seasonal sale. 

In a way, the fast fashion industry is designed to keep you in the hamster wheel of buying new medium quality T-shirts. 

 

Fast fashion works exactly like planned obsolescence in tech: the shiny phone that you bought last year becomes slower and stops working perfectly just because there's a new more-shiny one coming out, and the same happens with T-shirts. Low quality T-shirts are meant to last for one season, sometimes less. 

High quality T-shirts, on the other hand, can last for a decade--that's key for a sustainable wardrobe. Even if they cost more upfront, think about the Cost Per Wear factor.

Let’s say you’re between a medium-quality T-shirt for $25 and a luxury classic T-shirt for $54. 

The Cost Per Wear factor is determined by the price divided by the total number of times you wear it.

If you wear the t-shirt once a week, and a medium-quality t-shirt lasts three years, its cost per wear would be $0.15, whereas an organic classic t-shirt once a week for ten years, is only $0.09 per wear.

But you don’t have to wait that long for your investment to start to pay off. Your skin will thank you for starting your sustainable wardrobe too!

 

New Medium Quality Clothes, Same Chemicals and Microfibers

It’s tempting to think that you can refresh your wardrobe any time by getting something new, but if you’re buying inorganic clothing, you’re actually just adding more chemicals and microfibers from fabrics like nylon and polyester. 

Those fabrics are cheap petroleum-based plastics, which means they’re made of the same stuff as gasoline. Every time you wash inorganic clothes, tiny pieces of plastic called microfibers get washed off. This is why medium and low quality T-shirts and clothes deteriorate so quickly. 

By contrast, if you’re rocking a sustainable wardrobe, every time you wash your clothes, you’re only washing off organic things like oils from your skin… unless for some reason you sweat petroleum, but that would probably mean you have bigger things to worry about than your sustainable wardrobe! 

Start With A Classic T-Shirt

You don’t need to throw out every piece of clothing you own today, but wouldn’t it be nice to add an organic T-shirt to your collection tomorrow?

The keystone of your sustainable wardrobe is a classic T-shirt. One reason is because you’re replacing one of the most replaced items with something more permanent. Another reason is it looks good, feels good, and goes with everything, whether it's a suit or a pair of jeans !

At the end of the day, building a sustainable wardrobe isn’t just about the health of the planet--it’s also about the health of you. How you look, how you feel, and how you thrive all starts with how you invest in yourself--we think you deserve the best.