Sustainable Style Inked: Elevating Fashion with Eco-Friendly Attire
Tattoos have a much longer history than you might have realised. British Vogue claims that the genesis of tattooing “can be traced all the way back to roughly 5000 BC, when the Japanese embellished clay figurines with tattoo-like markings.”
As a style motif, the tattoo has evolved over the centuries. Ancient Egyptians are known to have added elaborate tattoo designs to mummies, while a William Hodges painting from 1775 depicts a woman with a large number of tattoos in a Tahitian bay.
Today, people not quite willing to get inked can opt instead for clothes adorned with tattoo designs. Here are several eco-friendly ways you would be able to take this route.
Look for Natural Materials
Conventionally, clothes are made from synthetic fibres notorious for their environmentally damaging effect. Some garments can, when thrown about by the spinning drum in a washing machine, shed microscopic plastics that are subsequently released into the water supply.
One major cause of negative publicity for plastic has been its harmful impact on marine life — an issue highlighted, for example, by the esteemed naturalist Sir David Attenborough.
The good news is that various organic materials — including hemp, linen, and cotton — have been used in creating clothes, leaving them appreciably more sustainable than ‘standard’ attire.
Go Vegan — with Your Clothes
Whether or not you have adopted a vegan diet, you likely know what the word ‘vegan’ means in this sentence. However, you might not have realised that it’s even possible to go down the vegan route with your clothing.
Like vegan food, vegan clothing is made without the use of any products originating in animals. While genuine leather obviously wouldn’t count as vegan, the same could not be said of mushroom leather or kelp leather — either of which can be used for clothes manufacturing.
Familiarise Yourself with Upcycling
What is upcycling? In the context of fashion, it basically involves repurposing textiles and clothes that have already been used for clothing purposes.
Key to the ecological appeal of upcycling is how it would enable you to efficiently minimise waste. If you own a particular piece of clothing that you have long neglected to wear for one reason or another, you could find that the fabric can be fashioned (ahem) into a different wearable thing.
Buy Clothing That is Made to Order
Why is this a big deal when you are trying to be eco-friendly with your clothing choices? Basically, because when clothing is precisely made to meet specific needs of the individual customer, the job will use only as many resources as strictly necessary.
If you are considering a particular fashion brand but are unsure whether they follow this strategy, the brand’s website might have a ‘frequently asked questions’ (FAQ) section that would enlighten you.
This is the case with the UK-based company Broken Society, which offers tattoo inspired clothing that, for each customer, is printed fresh to order.
Take the ‘Capsule’ Approach to Filling Your Wardrobe
You might have heard or read the term ‘capsule wardrobe’ before, but what does it mean? Harper’s BAZAAR explains that “it tends to mean a streamlined edit of items that all work well together, pieces that complement one another.”
The idea is that, with this kind of setup in place, none of the clothes in your wardrobe are likely to be left unused or unworn.
As capsule clothes are supposed to be versatile, it would obviously be convenient if they are timeless in style. As we established at the start of this article, tattoos have a history dating back centuries — and so clothes stylistically inspired by tattoos can serve as a fashion staple for the long haul.
Through investing in a set of tattoo-design clothes — including t-shirts, hoodies and sweatshirts — now, you can prepare to put together a formidable capsule wardrobe.
Endeavour to Make Your Clothes Last as Long as Possible
Once you have a range of clothes you can anticipate being happy with for some time to come, you should do what you can to make sure those pieces indeed stay the course.
You can take the required level of care by following instructions on how to look after those clothes in the right way. It is perhaps inevitable that, sooner or later, an item of your clothing will incur some damage — and if this does happen, you should investigate whether you would be able to repair rather than replace.
As a general rule, the longer you keep and regularly use a clothing item before replacing it, the better the environmental implications associated with that clothing.
