It’s been a busy couple of months, and I have somehow
neglected posting on this blog for quite some time! I’ve been through quite a
few different personal changes since I last posted. Handing in my notice at my
current digital marketing job and booking flights to go travelling with my
boyfriend around South East Asia being two of the most exciting changes! We fly
off at the end of October and are busy preparing for the moment that we touch
down in Thailand. We’ve not booked a return flight home yet, so the future is open,
and I feel incredible happy with where it’s headed!
Although I’m sure going forward that I’ll have plenty of South
East Asia content to post on this blog, that’s not what I wanted to focus on in
this blog post. Instead, I want to talk about a sustainable brand which I’ve
been really loving lately. It’s one which you may recognise from their effortlessly
cool simplistic branding, or which you might have seen doing the rounds on your
Instagram feed. Today I want to talk about the sustainable underwear and basics
brand, Organic Basics.
Who Are Organic Basics?
Organic Basics are, in my eyes, a model clothing retailer.
Selling good quality, ethically made underwear, sportswear and other miscellaneous
items such as bamboo toothbrushes, all Organic Basics’ products are simple yet
designed to last. For an underwear company, their items are on the slight pricey side
and may not be for everyone. Their ethos is that their clothing is 'basically better made', meaning you pay for the sustainable production process and for the knowledge that the items will last longer than cheaper alternatives.
The real selling point of Organic Basics for me is that they’re one of many forward thinking companies of late who are offsetting
their carbon emissions with every purchase. By funding a windfarm in
Turkey, Organic Basics offset 100 kilos of CO2 for every order placed, helping
to restore the balance of any emissions put out in the production process. Imagine
the outcome if every fast fashion giant out there began doing the same?!
Organic Basics first caught my attention a few months ago
when they sent me an email calling out the fashion industry as, in their words,
‘a dirty bastard’. Being no stranger to the usual ‘babes, we’d love to work
with you!’ tone of PR emails, this one was a welcome change, and a sentiment
which recently I’ve been starting to agree with. This claim is essentially
Organic Basics’ entire ethos. Fast fashion is destroying our planet. Huge
companies are polluting our world by mass producing clothes which are made
from cheap materials and will only be on trend for a few months before new trends
come in. This is where Organic Basics want to see a change in the industry. And
it’s a change which I’m here for.
Because the team at Organic Basics aren’t wrong, and the more
that you read into this seemingly harmless industry, the scarier it seems. I’ve
worked for fashion retailers (probably one of the biggest culprits, in fact: ASOS).
I’ve bought into trends on Instagram and purchased clothes which I’ve quickly
got bored of once the fad passed. I’ve worn coats for one winter before feeling
like I needed a new one the following year. Fast fashion is lucrative and it’s
easy to fall into its trap, but it’s also easy to make small changes and
decrease how much you’re buying into the fad.
What can be done about fast fashion?
Fast fashion is the second biggest polluter in the world,
second only to oil – how scary is that?! It’s an industry which is responsible
for high carbon emissions, wastewater production and huge amounts of waste ending
up in landfill. Not to mention, buying into fast fashion also has high social
costs, with many workers being forced to work very long hours for extremely low
pay, notably much less than the final cost of the garment. 1 billion items are
produced per year by the fast fashion industry – and how many of those items
are ending up in landfill just a few months later?
It’s scary having to think about everything. In recent years,
there’s a callout culture around absolutely anything. What you’re eating, where
you’re shopping, what you’re wearing, what you’re putting on your face, what you’re
cleaning with. It can feel impossible to do it all. And it IS impossible to do
it all. Our society has been shaped in a way that everything is meant to be easy.
And the easiest options are often the ones which cut corners and have impacts
on the planet and our environment. But there are ways to make a difference
without having to make too many changes to your routine.
Shopping in charity shops every now and then, browsing Depop
instead of ASOS occasionally, buying vintage from kilo sales rather than vintage ‘style’
from the high street. Buying clothes which you like rather than the latest trend
you see on Instagram. Not buying clothes just for photos. Donating your clothes
or selling them on when you grow out of them or want to try a new style. There
are countless ways to make a small difference. They’re changes which we should
all be trying to make, if we have the capacity and funds to do so.
I have worked with companies mentioned in this post on a gifting
basis, however I was not asked to write an article and all opinions are my own.
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