Sustainable Travel Tips: Say Goodbye To Fast Fashion
Let’s talk about fast fashion. Let’s talk about the purchasing decisions you make as you plan your travel fits and scour online shopping sites before your next big trip. After years of seeking out clothing brands that align with our environmentalist vision, we’ve gathered lots of sustainable travel tips that we’re sharing below. If you meticulously plan out what goes into your suitcase just like we do, this post is for you.
Travel outfits designed with the environment in mind.
Less is More
The reality of being environmentally-conscious gals has meant giving up on a lot of the places we used to shop. This choice also required us to shift our mindset from one where we believed that more clothes = more happiness.
The fast fashion industry is designed to sell cheap, trendy clothes that are not made to last. Major Dealbreaker. To make matters worse, social media seems to have magnified this issue. Many influencers make money promoting–and rarely vetting–fast fashion companies. Everywhere we look on our feeds and For You pages, we see influential people urging us to buy more, more, more. Very few conversations take place online about buying only the things we truly love.
It’s not hard to see why twenty-somethings are some of the biggest supporters of this industry. With limited income and a surplus of social events, cheap clothing sites seem, on the surface, to be a great solution.
When it comes to travel, current media trends romanticize the idea of purchasing an entirely new wardrobe before a trip. Fast-fashion sites make this easier than ever by selling dresses and bikinis for $10 or less.
Fast Fashion: A Major Dealbreaker
One of the worst culprits, SHEIN, is a fast fashion company now widely known for offering affordable styles of just about every type of clothing. According to good on you, the company received a score of 0-10% in the 2021 Fashion Transparency Index. Essentially, this means there’s little to no information on the living wages and rights of workers at SHEIN.
The clothes may come cheap to you, but someone else is likely paying the price. Low prices may seem like a steal of a deal – but the real costs are often far greater than we realize. It’s vital that we shift our mindsets to consider how our clothes are being made, and by whom.
Before praising a cheap garment from an online store, take a moment to imagine the workers living on the wages they’re being paid for that product.
As if it wasn’t bad enough already, SHEIN contributes to waste by adding hundreds of new styles daily and wrapping every. single. item. in plastic bags. The final straw is the company’s reputation for ripping off other brands’ designs without credit or compensation.
Marbella, Spain
Martha's Vineyard, USA
Pack for the Planet
One glaring example of SHEIN’s design theft: stealing from Finatics. Finatics is a small clothing business we’re proud to promote, that donates 10% of net profits to save sharks from shark finning. Their unique designs gained almost instant attention on social media, and SHEIN was all too quick to swoop in and steal their most popular, PROTECT THE LOCALS, design.
This unfortunate example shows just how inherently bad brands like this can be, taking money not only from a small business, but also from efforts to preserve marine life.
All in all, SHEIN is a major dealbreaker. Let’s be honest, these aren’t clothes we should be proud to wear. While it may be affordable to order an entire suitcase worth of new clothing from fast fashion companies before your next trip, it’s not entirely–often not at all–ethical.
Marbella, Spain
Marbella, Spain
Do You have a Relationship with Your Clothes?
But we’re not trying to take away all your fun! If we stop supporting corporations like these, we have SO much more money to give to amazing brands and small businesses that are deserving of all our love and devotion.
Starting now, you can begin to build relationships with the clothes you wear, and the brands you buy from. As you begin to know how, where, and with what care your clothes are made, your purchases start to have more meaning.
If you’re someone who seeks to have a positive impact, know that you can, in the little choices you make every day.
Florence, Italy
Brands We Adore
So, where SHOULD you shop before your next getaway? How do you put your hard earned money to good use?
One of our biggest sustainable travel tips is to find brands you can trust, that you can come back to time and time again for the things you need. We’ve become avid supporters of the three brands shared below for all our travel wardrobe essentials.
ThredUP – Affordability
ThredUP is an online thrift store that proves thrifting can help solve the fashion waste crisis. This online store is the perfect way to “constantly refresh your style while creating less waste.”
What we love: Impressively, the company sells 35,000 brands, ensuring you can find some of your favorites on the site. Best of all, you can order a ThredUP bag and do your own closet cleanout, and then use the money you earn on the sale of your clothes to fund your shopping obsession! (That’s what we do).
Madewell is a brand that partners with ThredUp, offering you store credit and discounted jeans if you ship your old clothes to ThredUp. Learn more about just how to turn your used clothes into new clothes here.
Canggu, Bali
Canggu, Bali
VEJAs – Comfort
Need a comfortable and stylish pair of walking shoes for your next trip? VEJA dedicates an entire section of its website to explaining how they make their trendy sneakers.
What we love: This company is all about transparency, using only certified organic cotton and performing consistent chemical safety checks to ensure their sneakers don’t contain any noxious, toxic or polluting elements.
In addition, VEJA also happens to be the first sneaker brand to use fabric entirely made from recycled plastic bottles. While the shoes are pricier ($100-150 on average), they’re made to last, and not significantly more expensive than popular brands like Nike.
This is a good place to note that the ability to make these choices about what you wear–such as, the choice to purchase a $100 pair of shoes–is a privilege not everyone has. Those who can should choose to support the companies like VEJA, who are working to make this world a little better for us all.
Sabo Skirt – Trendy
Giving up fast fashion will allow you to seek out brands that you feel represent your unique style, rather than continuing to follow the ever changing industry trends (by the way: the reason they’re always changing is so that you continue to spend money).
Sabo Skirt is an Australian based online store that drops collections of dresses, skirts, and swimsuits that look like they’re meant to be worn on the Amalfi Coast in Italy, or the Greek Islands. Whether you need the perfect dress for a nice dinner, or a suit for lounging in a beachside cabana, SABO has you covered.
What we love: The company has a dedicated page to openly discuss its journey toward sustainability, with 50% of designs being made from a 100% natural fiber, 90% recyclable packaging, and a 100% solar powered HQ.
Further, SABO sells reusable products such as tote bags, straws, and bamboo toothbrushes. Order 5+ items and you’ll be gifted a free, reusable bag. While these efforts might seem small standing alone, when combined with the behind the scenes work this brand has done to be more environmentally conscious (solar power, recycling, natural fibers) we’re confident that this is NOT an example of the dreaded ploy of greenwashing.
Sustainable Travel Tips
In short, these are just a few of the sustainable brands worth supporting. But, this is a great jumping off point if you’re just beginning to think about where your clothes come from. It can be overwhelming to make too many changes at once–starting small can help you build habits that will develop over time.
Side note: Don’t beat yourself up for supporting brands before you knew better! I (Laney) will be the first to admit to shopping at SHEIN during my first year of college. It wasn’t until I began reading more closely into the climate crisis that I realized I could no longer support businesses that so blatantly disregard people and our planet. My sister, Maddie, was well ahead of me after living with so little in the Bahamas–and she kindly nudged me, step by step, in the direction of more planet-friendly choices.
If you want more sustainable travel tips, check out our post on The Impact of Ecotourism.
Start Small
In conclusion, as you start to shop for your next big trip, make the conscious choice to turn away from fast fashion corporations like SHEIN and try one of these sustainable brands instead. Or, do a bit of research yourself to find an ethical brand you love and let us know what you’re proud to wear in the comments below, so we can support them too!
Shop Local
One last tip: Always leave a little extra room in your suitcase so that you can support local businesses while traveling. These unique pieces of clothing will be lasting reminders of the places you’ve been! Some of our favorite clothes were purchased on trips, in foreign countries.
We can have a relationship with the clothes we wear. We can feel proud to share the stories behind the products we purchase. We can create our own unique style that reflects who we are rather than who we’re told to be. Let’s do it together.
Martha's Vineyard, USA
Martha's Vineyard, USA
"We can change our attitude to the material world: buying only what we really need or truly love; celebrating the stories behind the things we buy; and knowing the great power we wield with our yes and no.”
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