Is developing your personal style an effective road to sustainability? I think it is. Once you can articulate your taste and can analyse a garment based on whether it will work for you, your shopping trips will be targeted and your purchases precisely what you want. No more wasted money or discarded clothing!

When clothing is as cheap and as readily available as we have become accustomed to over the last two decades, it is too easy to buy excessively without stretching the budget. Then if the piece doesn’t work it gets discarded and replaced by the next thing. It’s the scatter gun approach followed by the trial and error method and is hardly sustainable!

Developing your personal style doesn’t mean you have to wear standard clothing that is all so similar it feels like you’re putting on a uniform, but it does help you to be more discerning in your clothing choices. There are various elements involved in developing your own personal style and you can use all or some of them to ensure your purchasing is more strategic and targeted and therefore sustainable.

Here are just a few:

Colour:

• Knowing what you like and which ones like you!

• Knowing how to combine colours

• Understanding the effect colour has on your mood and the messages colour conveys

• Understanding how colour influences how you are perceived by others (this is related to conventions and culture)

• Knowing how to choose colour contrast levels to suit you

Body Shape:

• Understanding how your skeleton informs your body shape

• Accepting that there are aspects of your shape that cannot be altered

• Acknowledging which bits you like and prefer to emphasise over others

• Knowing how to highlight the bits you like and downplaying areas you like less

• Understanding how different fabrics work for your body shape (soft drapey fabrics for a softer body and stiffer fabrics for a more skeletal shape)

Clothing styles:

• Knowing which silhouettes you like the look of on your particular body shape

• Identifying when a garment is designed to suit your body shape

• Knowing how to manipulate a garment you love if it is not designed for your body shape so that it still works for you

Personality:

• Ability to analyse the inherent character of a garment

• Deciding if the character suits your own personality or not

• Understanding the refinement levels of clothing (formal, casual etc)

• Knowing what individual pieces work together

These are just a few elements for you to consider before you buy in order to reduce waste. The more you understand about your physical body and about what you really like, the better shopper you will become.

And once you can easily identify the kinds of clothes you love, you will not tire of them quickly. You will keep them for longer because they will continue to spark joy for you. You’ll become less reliant on the short lived adrenaline rush from buying something new, instead achieving a greater satisfaction from wearing things you truly love. How’s that for sustainability?