Green Summer Wardrobe

If you’re looking for a way to green up your life, why not start with your closet? It’s the start of a new season and that means an opportunity to add to your wardrobe! Whether you’re buying new clothes or restructuring old ones, it’s all about eco-consciousness this year. Here are five ways to green your wardrobe before the hot summer weather hits:

Buy Natural Fabrics

As the green movement gains momentum, eco-friendly clothing is getting easier to find. Look for clothing that is made with hemp or organic cotton. Traditional cotton clothing takes an incredible amount of fertilizers and pesticides to produce. In fact, one cotton T-shirt needs one third of a pound of these toxins to be produced! Cotton clothing can be made from as little as five percent organic cotton or as much as 100 percent. Read the label!

Go Vintage

Buying clothing from a charity shop or thrift store doesn’t make them used; it makes them “vintage.” Look for charity shops in your area; they can be a great source of gently used clothing. The Salvation Army and Goodwill are two of the most popular charity shops in America. Alternately, clothing resale shops are popping up all over the country. Don’t worry that the clothes you find will be dirty and torn! The shops inspect and launder all donated clothing before it’s put on the racks.

Host a Swap

Unless you’re getting ready to walk down the runway in Paris, no one is going to know if you’re wearing last year’s fashions. Ask your girlfriends to pick five garments from last year that they can bear to part with. Have the girls over, pop a bottle of wine and order a pizza or two. The idea of the party is that each person leaves with five new-to-them items for their summer wardrobe.

Alter It

You don’t have to own a sewing machine to alter your clothes, though it will help. Look in your closet and find the clothes you didn’t wear last summer. Grab them and inspect them with a new eye. How can you change them into things you’d love to wear? A too-big T-shirt can be turned into a trendy mini-dress, a pair of jeans can be turned into a skirt and safety pins can be added to a few tees with strategically placed tears.

Be Picky

The easiest way to turn your wardrobe green is to not replace it all in one fowl swoop. Instead of running to the nearest shopping center, take the time to think about what you really need. Pause to consider whether you really need that new skirt or if you’re making an impulse buy. One of the best ways to turn yourself into a fussy consumer is to make a deal with yourself: for every new garment you buy, you’ll donate one item to the charity shop. You’d be surprised at how quickly you put an item back on the rack when you know that you’ll be letting something go if you take it home!

There’s no better time of year to green your closet than summer. Look to charity shops, swapping parties and even your own handy work to put a new spin on your old wardrobe. By eliminating impulse purchases and making what you do buy organic, you’ll be wearing the latest trend of the season: green!

Michele Isbell is a freelance blogger for tshirtprinting.net where you can find services for T shirt printing Manchester. She loves finding organic tees to custom print!