To shop, or not to shop?
…that is the question
As we enter back into what feels like the never-ending lockdown and restrictions of Covid, the answer posed in The Raw and the Real returns: has Covid changed the way we shop? Emerging a thriftier, more thoughtful shopper
Words by FLOROHDE
Firstly, let me be clear, I’ve always loved shopping. I mean proper shopping. Walking around shops for hours to find that seemingly life changing item. Trying on as many things as the shop will allow. Leaving, and then circling back to retrieve the top you carefully hid behind the most unappealing rail just in case you couldn’t live without it as you first suspected. It may sound ridiculous to some, but there is a particular kind of excitement reserved for when you find something that you look and feel great in.
Once Covid hit I - like everyone else - didn’t enter a clothes shop for the best part of a year and to be quite honest, I thought I’d miss it more. It goes without saying that there have been far more important things preoccupying everyones thoughts. But as someone who likes to think they dress for themselves and fairly well, I was surprised by how quickly it seemed to take a backseat, as sweatpants became my go-to.
Don’t get me wrong, I longed to be able to pop into a shop and spend hours trying on everything in sight, but something has changed over the last 12 months and I can no longer walk into my favourite high street shops in the carefree way I used to.
During lockdown there was plentiful time for introspection and reflection. One aspect of life that’s been widely discussed and re-evaluated is our consumerism. There’s been a mass awakening with countless conversations started on the impact of our shopping habits on the planet and people. Issues previously sidelined or guiltily ignored in silence are now inescapable. From the #payup movement to the Boohoo forced labour scandal, there’s a growing momentum, a demand for answers, transparency and push for positive, and long overdue, change.
The transformative moment came for me early into lockdown. I was made redundant, and facing empty days (and very slim pickings in terms of job availability) I started my own small made-to-order brand. From the start I knew that sustainability and transparency must be built into the structure of the brand. To offer a consumer anything else just felt wrong. I was uncomfortably aware that the responsibility to offer only the purest products made me a slightly contradictory figure, as my own shopping habits were only just starting to follow en route.
I began by changing how I looked at clothes online. I questioned the various apps I had acquired and deleted, unfollowed and unsubscribed quite briskly When I launched my brand on Instagram I was engulfed into the amazing world of small independent fashion brands. There’s so much creativity and innovation out there that’s exciting.
It’s surprisingly refreshing to explore designers that push boundaries and encourage you to develop your own personal style! Depending on how the algorithm is working that day, once you’ve found one you can more or less discover them all!
There are also the seriously cool, heavily curated, independent boutiques that stock these brands, so you can see them in real life and have the in store experience too! Offering small scale, often hand- made pieces thoughtfully produced, they are the aspirational alternative. I take far more pleasure in discovering a new smaller brand on instagram than I ever did guiltily scrolling through 1000s of pages of clothes purely designed to be worn once.
Similarly I had been on Depop for a while but hadn’t discovered how well to utilise it. When you spend a bit of extra time building up your saved collections and finding the right people to follow the possibilities are endless. It’s a whole wide world out there! The same with Ebay. I now turn to these two platforms first if I want something “new”.
I find it far more interesting to look for an item in this way and it also makes you consider your purchases much more and then treasure the item when you find it. It can take longer, but you’re rewarded when you find the perfect (insert the item you desire the most) in much better quality and no one will have the same!
The only aspect that can be an issue, and something that’s generally associated with sustainable or organic items, is they are more expensive. I won’t deny this. My own pieces cost more than those on the highstreet but for a hand-made, small scale piece made using sustainable materials the higher costs are unavoidable if you want to survive as a small brand. I hope that by using rental sites like ByRotation, ROTARO and Hurr, independent sustainable brands will be accessible to a much wider audience.
I still love shopping and will always prefer the experience of a physical shop. Looking online really isn’t the same as seeing and feeling something. But until the huge fashion conglomerates make the necessary changes in how they pay their workers and their environmental impact I will be avoiding my previous highstreet haunts.
Instead I’ll try as hard as I can to support the sustainably conscious brands I love here in the UK - whether in stores, online or through rental. I will also continue to enjoy searching through Depop and Ebay for more affordable pre-loved gems. I highly recommend you try it - you never know you might just prefer it!