“Sustainable fashion” has to be one of the biggest buzzwords in the fashion industry (and beyond) as we head into a new decade. Given that any discussion of the topic inevitably touches on things like environmental pollution and climate change, workers’ rights, industry regulation, and other socio-economic issues (including, once you start to dig down, classism and racism), it can feel overwhelming to try to figure out a nuanced and informed position that somehow reconciles all of one’s personal values. At times, it can seem as though clothes are simultaneously too cheap and yet not cheap enough; there are too many being produced, and yet some people still struggle to afford the basics. Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark, as they say, but I don’t know how one might go about fixing it. There are lots of fingers pointed at consumers – those gluttons of consumption – but that perspective is rooted in the classic capitalism notion that consumers are what shape and drive the market which, to me, is deeply suspect. Under late stage capitalism, what comes first: a desire to buy, or the desire to create a desire to buy?

As someone who writes about clothes as a hobby, I have no real business wading into waters as deep as these. I encourage everyone to read up on the subject (and do so from a variety of voices and points of view), but I don’t feel I have anything worthwhile to add to it. In general, I favour a “stay on the sidelines, listen, process, evaluate, recalibrate as needed, repeat” approach, and that sort of approach doesn’t lend itself to public pronouncements.

And yet.

Today I have, well, not exactly a pronouncement but some thoughts to share on a tangential topic. To wit: is thrifting sustainable?

As a dedicated thrifter, you can imagine that my knee-jerk reaction when I first heard the suggestion that thrifting isn’t sustainable. “It SO is, too! It’s the definition of sustainable.” The second R is “reuse”, after all. Thrifting takes already-produced goods that have been discarded by their original owners and re-purposes/redistributes them, keeping them in use and out of landfills. This is a Good Thing in my books, and I will never feel guilty about buying thrifted (or secondhand) goods – or buying lots of them. As far as I am concerned, the potential negative impacts of high consumption of secondhand goods is that there is less for others to buy, and prices are being driven up. The first may be a legitimate issue in some areas, where the secondhand market is small and under-supplied. In my city, that is very much not the case; there is a plethora of stores, and they are filled to the rafters with stuff.

The price thing is an issue here, however. Prices are, unarguably, higher than they used to be even 4-5 years ago (even accounting for inflation in the costs of operations), and I think we are reaching a tipping point where it’s becoming cheaper to buy new fast fashion. For people who shop secondhand out of necessity rather than conviction, this is an important consideration and I think thrift stores (especially for-profit ones who are the most at fault when it comes to over-pricing) will eventually start to see a share of their consumer base move away. I know people love to blame resellers for higher thrift prices, but I think they are a very small segment of the market. As thrifting has surged in popularity, more folks are going to thrift stores, period; stores are seeing increased demand and responding accordingly. Personally, I don’t mind “paying up” for items that are truly worth it, but thrift stores are not generally equipped to reliably identify those items and price them in a reasonable manner. That’s how you end up with H&M stuff that’s more expensive than retail, and designer items under $10. However, as long as fast fashion exists, there will be something of a check on thrift prices.

Which brings me back to the sustainability piece. Thrifting does not contribute to the fashion industry’s environmental issues. It simply doesn’t. The relationship between supply and demand is not direct. Demand does not necessarily create supply. Thrift stores aren’t filled to the brim because they have a lot of customers to serve; they’re filled to the brim because people discard a lot of stuff, constantly. In that sense, supply does have a relationship to the fashion industry. It is not a coincidence that, while thrift stores have been around for a long time, their inventory has skyrocketed in the last decade. It’s not a coincidence that I can regularly thrift items that were in retail stores within the previous 6 months – or, sometimes, that are still being sold in retail stores. The fashion industry has created a mindset wherein clothing is disposable, and that feeds the supply that has made thrifting such an attractive option. So, in that narrow sense, one could argue that thrifting in its current incarnation is not truly sustainable because its supply depends to a (large?) extent on unsustainable practices.

I don’t see this as an indictment of thrifting. Thrifting is not a solution to the world’s clothing oversupply problem, and people do it a disservice when they try to frame it as such. It’s a way to mitigate (to a small extent) the impacts of that problem. Call it a bandaid. As a consumer, sometimes that’s the best available option.

I don’t know what the future of thrifting looks like, much as I don’t know what the future of the fashion industry will look like. It is encouraging to see that more and more people are becoming interested in finding new ways to create a circular economy – clothing swaps, for example, have exploded in popularity in my area. I have written before that I use thrift stores as a kind of “lending library” of clothes (and other items, for that matter) – I take things that spark my interest, and re-donate them when I no longer wish to use them. I am still waiting for someone to take this paradigm and create an (easily accessible) app or service around it, and it’s only a matter of time before it happens.

As always, would love to hear your thoughts on these issues, especially in regards to future trends. Where do you think we are heading in this next decade in terms of sustainable fashion practices?

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my thoughts on rewatching the 1994 movie adaptation of Little Women. Over the holidays, I had the chance to watch the new version directed by Greta Gerwig. It came out to overwhelmingly positive reviews, good word of mouth, and solid box office. I was fully sold on it before walking into the theatre because I adore both Saoirse Ronan (Jo) and Timothee Chalamet (Laurie) and, of course, love the story. Well, I walked out with mixed feelings about the movie. I wasn’t planning to write about them (because I did enjoy the movie a lot and it didn’t seem worthwhile to focus on the quibbles) until someone on IG asked me to share my thoughts. I guess this does serve as a bookend to my previous post, so here we are. Read on and feel free to disagree in the comments.

First up, the good stuff. The cast is, for the most part, absolutely fantastic. In many cases, I would say they’re an improvement even over the 1994 version (which was superbly acted). Off the top of my head, Professor Baer is infinitely better cast here, as is Aunt March. Old Mr. Laurence is wonderful. Florence Pugh as adult Amy is amazing, far better than Samantha Mathis. Timmy Chalamet was perfect as young Laurie, though I feel that Christian Bale looked more age-appropriate for older Laurie. Saoirse was phenomenal, no less great than Winona Ryder.

The main exception? Emma Watson. I am, admittedly, biased because I don’t think she is a great actress is general. I thought her Meg was a charisma vacuum, and it made me deeply uninterested in her subplot, to which the movie devotes far more time than the 1994 version.

I also think that having Florence play both young and adult Amy was a mistake. She is a very dynamic performer, but she does not look anything remotely like a 10-12 year old, nor does she sound like one. Her voice is absolutely lovely but quite deep/gravelly. When Amy throws a tantrum because she can’t go to the theatre with Jo and Meg, the scene played off to me; Amy looked just as old as her sisters, and the whole thing only made sense if you already knew that she was supposed to be much younger.

This brings me to my other major quibble with the movie: it relies entirely too much, in my opinion, on the audience’s presumed familiarity with the story. Rather than following a linear narrative, the movie is largely a bunch of flashback scenes. In the “present day”, Jo is already in New York, and Amy is in Europe with Aunt March. Jo eventually travels back to Concord because Beth is dying, all the while thinking about the past. To me, this approach of inter-cutting different timelines drained the story of its emotional impact to a large extent; I wasn’t watching “little” women grow up, I was watching an adult woman reminiscing about her childhood. There is emotional power in that kind of story, but that is not what Little Women is for me. Your mileage may vary, obviously. I still enjoyed the movie because I knew the backstory, and because the individual flashbacks were so wonderfully acted, but I can’t say that I loved it in the same way as the 1994 version.

Another director’s choice that I didn’t enjoy was the ending, and specifically 2 aspects. One, there is an added scene where Jo second-guesses her decision to turn down Laurie’s proposal long after it was made. I have no idea if this was in the book, but it wasn’t in the previous movie and I feel like it muddies the waters unnecessarily. I think this version did a better job than the 1994 one of showing that Jo only loved Laurie in a platonic manner and that she was better off either alone or with someone like Baer. This new scene undercuts all of that. I understand wanting to show that Jo is rethinking her whole I-will-never-marry stance, but to go down the path of Laurie-was-the-one-who-got-away? The idea of Jo pining after her sister’s husband is icky to me. No, thanks.

Secondly, I did not like the resolution of Jo’s story with Baer. The way it was presented was too ambiguous for my liking. Did she truly end up marrying Baer, or was it all just a fiction? I liked the scene where Baer shows up at Jo’s house and interacts/bonds with her family; I thought that was lovely, and it showed how well he would fit in with the March extended family. But then the umbrella scene immediately thereafter felt rushed and much like an afterthought – and too meta. We all know that Alcott paired those two characters mostly so that people would stop griping about Jo not being with Laurie, but the decision to basically insert that very fact into the movie felt off to me. Little Women is not about authorship to me, though it clearly is what interested Greta Gerwig. That’s fine. I wish we had gotten a more satisfying resolution to Jo’s love story, but I guess it’s a minor quibble. (And we do have the “happy ever after” montage at the end which would suggest that Prof. Baer did, in fact, stick around in some capacity.)

Overall, it was a very enjoyable movie filled with great performances, and my quibbles with it are solely of the “creative differences” variety – I admire how beautifully Gerwig shot the movie, but I don’t agree with all of her narrative/directorial choices.

If you have watched the new Little Women, I would love to hear your thoughts.

NYE Belle

One of the things I accomplished this holiday season was binge-watching the entire first season of The Witcher in 2 nights. I know, you’re impressed. But seriously, it’s highly entertaining and I say that as someone who doesn’t even enjoy the fantasy genre as a rule. One of the great things about the show is all the fashion inspo, particularly as served by two of its main characters, Geralt (the titular witcher) and Yennefer (a rogue sorceress). I have been doing Witcher-inspired looks ever since I finished watching, and NYE was no exception. I decided to “Yen-up” this Nicole Miller dress by adding a faux fur vest whose silhouette is almost armor-like.

Notes: Nicole Miller dress (thrifted, $8); Skaist Taylor for Target vest (thrifted, $25); Valentino shoes (consignment, $50).

Festive, My Way

I’m not big on festive dressing – no Christmas sweaters here, no red-and-green combos. Well, not quite. I did wear dark forest green and blush pink for Christmas Day dinner with my family, a combination inspired by the Danse Lente bag I received as a gift from my husband.

This is a combination that I might not have otherwise put together, but I ended up loving it. It’s unexpected and doesn’t look garish at all. As someone who loves colour but also feels most comfortable wearing black, this is important. Also loving this Oak & Fort faux leather, half-wrap skirt – it’s such a “me” piece, and I can’t wait to use it for some Witcher-goes-corporate looks.

Notes: Aritzia sweater (thrifted, $5); Oak & Fort skirt (thrifted, $12); Melody Ehsani earrings (retail, $20); Prada shoes (retail, $330); Danse Lente bag (gift).

Laurie-Jo Mash Up

Another thing I did over the holidays was watch the new Little Women movie. A separate post on that is coming up later this week. Needless to say, however, the movie was also full of style inspo for me, especially from Jo and Laurie. This outfit was a bit of a mash-up of their styles, and also inspired by this Instagram ad from Frank & Oak:

I don’t have a pair of high waisted plaid pants (more’s the pity) so I had to make do with my paperbag-waist Anthro pants. The marigold colour paired well with my grey Comme des Garcons cardigan, a recent thrift rescue. (The cardigan had been shrunk by its previous owner, and I did my best to un-shrink it via blocking.) I like to think these Modern Vice shoes are something that Laurie – or Timmy Chalamet, let’s be honest – would wear. Timmy is one of my new style idols; I love how he mixes traditionally masculine and feminine pieces, and marches to the beat of his own sartorial drum.

Notes: Aritzia top (thrifted, $5); Comme des Garcons cardigan (thrifted, $4); Anthropologie pants (gift); Modern Vice shoes (thrifted, $25).

Gothic Fairytale

I didn’t bother much with Boxing Day sales this year, apart from checking out Goodwill’s 50% off sale and popping into Nordstrom Rack. The latter didn’t have a stellar sale, but I did find this literally stellar faux leather jacket. Actually, to be precise, my daughter found it for me. Her mission, in every store, is to find “sparkly stuff” and, this time, she really delivered. I am obsessed with star motifs, and my daughter didn’t get her predilection for sparkles from her father, ahem. I like how BlankNYC jackets fit (I have a couple of other ones), and they’re reasonably priced at Nordstrom Rack, so this one was a no-brainer. My first outfit with it was also a no brainer. I layered my Rick Owens smoke-hued tunic over an asymmetrical Oska skirt, and added some patent leather boots (my current faves) for some textural contrast. The result was very “gothic fairytale princess” and I LOVED every bit of it.

Notes: Oak & Fort turtleneck (retail, $38); Rick Owens tunic (secondhand, $133); Oska skirt (thrifted, $10); BlankNYC jacket (retail, $63); Ecco boots (thrifted, $20).