I am so pleased to welcome my wonderful friend and former blogging buddy Daisy to The Art of Being Holly today to share her thoughts on sustainable shopping and one fantastic brand that we all need to know about. Go for it Daisy…
I’m sure we’re all aware that sustainable shopping is becoming more popular, as we realise the impact fast fashion is having on the world. When I was first learning about sustainable shopping a lot of which is advertised is to shop second hand, aka go to a charity shop. However, I have never had much luck in charity shops in terms of clothing, and the idea of “thrifting” is a huge thing in America, but their charity shops are huge, and ours are typically the size of a living room. The problem I have with charity shops is that non of the clothes are up to date with fashion trends; so I’m trying to be more conscious with where I shop but don’t like what I find, so end up buying on fast fashion sites, and the cycle goes on and on.
However recently brands have been popping up that make new, stylish, trendy clothes. Brands such as Girlfriend, Tala, Nobody’s Child, the list continues. But the brand I am discussing today is Lucy and Yak.
Lucy and Yak was founded by a couple and are a clothing company that specialise in dungarees, and values themselves on treating everybody within their chain of work equally. “Our goal is to prove that you can do all of this without someone in the chain not receiving their fair share”. They only have 30 people working for their company, and all of them are paid a living wage, so that nobody is scraping by. All of their packaging its either 100% biodegradable or recyclable; and they advocate recycling and shopping sustainably – their blog has lots of great posts about it.
Now when it comes to sustainable clothes prices can get a bit high. In the grand scheme of things, prices aren’t actually that high when you think about what’s going on behind the scenes, and paying people a fair wage; but we’re all use to fast fashion, I particularly get bombarded by I Saw It First, who are constantly emailing me, or texting me that there is another sale on and you can get tops as low as £4, and in my experience get holes in after one wash.
So I’ve always wondering is paying the extra money, for something more sustainable worth the money? Will it last? How can you know it’s actually better? And while I can’t answer for all the brands in the world, and I can’t know if Lucy and Yak’s story is true (although why would they lie), as for their products I can assure you they are worth the price.
I own a pair of Luna black dungarees and some Camden stripes trousers (my colour is discontinued but here’s the same style in a different colour). I’ve had them for a few months now, and I haven’t noticed a single thing go wrong with them, they’re comfortable and stretchy, and I’ve always received a compliment when I wear their trousers. My only qualm is something that was my fault, a lot of the reviews for the Camden trousers said they came up big and to size down, but in the past when I’ve sized down nothing has fit, so I went with my normal size, and they are big. Not so much you can really tell and the bigger size adds to the comfort of the item, I just whack a belt on, but I do recommend reading reviews on sizing before purchasing.
My favourite thing about Lucy and Yak is actually their Depop account, which is wear I ordered my clothes from. As a student I’m always finding ways to save my money, and I found out that on their official Depop they sell items of clothing that have small faults in them that they won’t sell on their site. And by small faults, I mean teeny, tiny, unnoticeable faults that an untrained eye would never even spot. So because of this I got about £5.00 taken off of each item, they provide free shipping when you buy more than one item, and the items arrived in a gift bag type pouch and then a biodegradable plastic bag.
So as for value for money, not only did I buy a piece of clothing that potentially would have gone to waste despite looking like brand new, it was with a discount, from a sustainable brand, and two months down the line hasn’t given me any trouble. I can 100% recommend Lucy and Yak.
Where’s your favourite place to shop sustainably? We are always on the look out for new brand so would love to know!
Want more of Daisy? She is the graphic design talent behind The Art of Being Holly branding and the founder of Brazenell Design, where she makes THE cutest custom pet t-shirts and prints you ever did see! Find her on Instagram and Facebook.
Love Daisy [and Holly]
