How To Buy Clothes And Save The World: The $110 Prada Kitten Heel Method
Happy Belated Earth Day from the fashion extremist who never met a mid-range garment worth keeping. With all these sobering sustainability stats confirming what I've known since 11th grade, it feels like the perfect time to explain my philosophy.
It all started with a $10 Chanel flap bag with gold chain at a Value Village in Edmonton, Canada. No vintage consignment existed for cool people in my city back then. Only University of Alberta students had dial-up internet to sell anything online. The moment my fingers touched those buttery black leather poufs, I knew I wanted nothing to do with non-labels ever again.
Those Gucci horsebit suede clogs I found used yet never worn and 90% off O.G. price? Very special. That pack of white Hanes tees I've been replenishing since high school? Equally essential. The stuff in between? Dead to me. Documenting until I'm dead is the trajectory here.
For clarity, I will be documenting every detail of my lifelong commitment to fashion extremism.
The Luxury Paradox
Let's be honest: our closets are drowning in bullshit.
shows the average person only wears their clothes about seven times before tossing them. That's nearly 40% less than people did just 15 years ago. The numbers tell a brutal story. We're only actually wearing about 18% of the clothes we own. Half of all fast fashion items get thrown away within a year of purchase.My closet rebellion started in high school. Today's shoppers buy about five times more clothing annually than people did in 1980. The vast majority ends up unworn or quickly discarded. The fashion industry now accounts for roughly 10% of global carbon emissions. This exceeds all international flights and maritime shipping combined.
My solution has always been brutally simple. Invest in the exceptional pieces that make your heart race. Pair them with unfussy basics that never go out of style. Completely ignore the vast wasteland of mediocre mid-priced clothes designed to be replaced next season.
That's why I've always gravitated toward either label brands acquired through secondhand sources or basics that could survive a nuclear winter. There's simply no place in my closet for that $49.99 polyester blend top from wherever that will pill after three washes and end up in a donation bin by summer.