The future of fashion is slow and steady, not fast and cheap, a mantra that Ayesha Barenblat, founder of Remake, lives and breathes everyday.

It takes a garment worker 18 months to earn what a fashion brand CEO makes on their lunch break. It takes seventy-five million people to make our clothes, and of those people, 80 percent are women between the ages of 18 and 24. It’s believed that 100 pairs of human hands touch our garments before we ever see them in store or online. And if that’s not enough, it takes 2,720 liters of water to make a t-shirt, which is said to be how much we normally drink in three years. Three years!

Where did I get this information? From Remake, the revolutionary advocacy group on a mission to build a conscious consumer movement.

Remake’s founder, Ayesha Barenblat, believes that fast fashion is out, and slow fashion is in. With a focus on the millennial woman, her wish is to essentially remake the relationship between the women who make our clothes and the consumers who purchase them. By putting a face, a story, and a name to the ever-anonymous clothing manufacturing industry, Barenblat has been able to create a relatable, human connection that is normally obsolete.

Barenblat’s story is nothing short of eye-opening. From the beginning of a movement to the future of where it’s going, Remake is working tirelessly to put slow fashion permanently on the map.

“On April 24, 2013, Rana Plaza fell down. I was working at Better Work, a partnership between the International Labor Organization and World Bank to improve working conditions inside the fashion industry at the time,” said Barenblat. “As the death toll mounted, and I saw firsthand retailers whose labels were inside Rana Plaza worrying about the legal precedent of compensating the victims families, I was moved to want change sooner and faster.”

 The 2013 Rana Plaza collapse she’s referring to occurred in an eight-story commercial building in Bangladesh due to a structural failure. And, according to Clean Clothes Campaign, it ultimately claimed the lives of 1,134 people, and is considered to be the worst industrial garment-factory accident in history.

“Having worked on the inside of the industry for a long time, I made the business case for retailers to invest in the lives of garment makers. When Rana Plaza fell down, it [became] clear to me that it would take a groundswell of consumer demand to truly move the needle,” says Barenblat.

The inspiration for Remake had been laid, what she needed next was “a people’s movement” that refuses to tolerate deaths, the atrocious human rights abuses, and the extreme environmental degradation in the quest for cheap clothes.  

Today, her vision has grown into something truly admirable. Remake is focused on contributing to the slow fashion movement and educating consumers in three ways, including creating stringent sustainability criteria that sets the tone as a call to action “for what good looks like.” The first of the three includes Remake’s long-term goal for slowing down fashion, which involves immersing millennial fashion designers into maker communities.

The second includes Remake’s grassroots efforts involving stories, films, social media campaigns, and pop-up events aimed at inspiring millennial shoppers to think more consciously.

The third and final element involves a curated capsule collection and brand spotlight that helps take the guesswork out of where to shop ethically. Determined to shatter the myth that slow fashion is neither fashionable nor affordable, Remake is changing the way consumers shop.

If sustainable and ethical fashion is important to you, or you’re just cluing in and want to learn more, Remake is an invaluable resource. Like Barenblat says, “We do all the hard work for you, making the discovery of beautiful, everlasting statement pieces easy. On the backend, we look hard for supply chains that are transparent [and] brands that are not simply greenwashing and running clever marketing.” Akin to the campaign Remake runs, Barenblat’s passion, compassion, and knowledge about the garment industry, and what it takes to make slow fashion mainstream, is as crystal clear as it comes.

A reality not to be taken lightly, Barenblat warns that buying more “is making us unhappy, exploiting women around the world, and degrading our planet at a pace so rapid that we are looking at hard choices by 2030, such as growing cotton or food, giving people access to clean water, or using water for fashion production.” 

“We have to go back to buying fewer, better things,” she says. “That five dollar impulse buy tee won’t make us happy, is filled with chemicals that touch our skin, and is entrapping a generation of women into poverty.”

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Repurposing textiles to keep them out of landfills may be one of the most impactful changes you can make in disrupting fast fashion.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, textile waste occupies nearly 5% of all landfill space in the U.S; Americans generate an average of 25 billion pounds of textiles per year. Those textiles include clothing, accessories, towels, bedding, and other home textiles. That works out to roughly 82 pounds per person per year. Even more amazing is that only 15% of that get donated, recycled, or repurposed. The other 85% (or 70 pounds per person) makes its way into our already stressed landfills.

To give a name to the problem, this textile waste is referred to as post-consumer textile waste and the amount of it ending up in landfills grew by 40% between 1999-2009 (most likely as a result of the increase in fast fashion). On the other hand, the diversion rate of textiles making their way to landfills only increased by 2% during this same period. This means we can do a lot more to keep highly reusable and recyclable textiles out of landfills.

The easiest way to help reduce this immense problem is at the point of sale, but completely avoiding the purchase of new textiles is not realistic for most us. That said, consumers can make better choices by supporting companies that rely on fabrics and products made from recycled textiles or purchasing secondhand where possible.

Divert for Recycling, Donating, or Repurposing Textiles

But what to do with those clothing and household textiles that we already own? Gently worn and like-new items can be donated or resold on sites like ThredUp, but that leaves out textiles that may be somewhat worn, have a small stain or tear, are out of style, or are otherwise not easily reused. These kinds of textiles can be recycled and many secondhand stores do sell unsellable textiles to recyclers, but repurposing textiles is another solution to this dilemma.

Not only does repurposing textiles (clothing, bedding, curtains, blankets, towels) keep usable items out of landfills, but much of these items can be turned into really useful stuff. Need some DIY inspiration for repurposing textiles? Read on for a list of ideas below.

DIY Ideas for Repurposing Textiles

1. Patchwork Memory Quilt
2. Rag Rugs
3. Cleaning Cloths
4. Pillowcase Bags
5. Market Bags from
6. Homemade Draft Dodgers
7. Reusable Heat Pack Bed Buddy
8. Drawer Sachets
9. Holiday Ornaments made from Old Sweaters
10. Fabric Bookmarks
11. Fabric Roses
12. Decoupage and Mixed Media Wall Art

All that’s needed is a little sewing skill, some imagination, and a willingness to make somethign new out of something old!

If you would like to learn more about the textile landfill issue, visit the Council for Textile Recycling, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising public awareness about the importance of textile recycling and the need to reduce the amount of textile waste ending up in landfills.

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The capsule wardrobe movement is a way to bring back sanity in the face of fast fashion and other crazy fashion trends. It’s the new uniform.

While many people are still caught up in that fashion buying gerbil wheel of always shopping for clothes and buying into the fashion industry’s marketing ploy of trends–what’s in and what’s out–others of us are into a more minimalist statement: enter the capsule wardrobe. Many fabulous and famous people have taken up the capsule wardrobe concept; mainly because it frees up so much more time and energy for living one’s life and doing things that matter and have a purpose. Think Steve Jobs.

The idea of the capsule wardrobe is to give up the fickle trends of the fashion world and the constant work of being on trend, and instead, focus more on actually living your life. Instead of building your wardrobe one frenzied purchase after another, you work to pare down your wardrobe to the truly classic and versatile pieces you need. The goal is to minimize, not super size your wardrobe, but to do so in a purposeful and smart way. Don’t worry; the goal is not to get rid of style but to make it truly effortless.

Key Benefits of the Capsule Wardrobe Movement

• Less Stress – One argument for eschewing fast fashion and taking up the capsule movement is it can help reduce your stress. It’s so much easier to get ready for work when everything in your wardrobe goes with everything else!
• Less Judgement – Let’s face it, the fashion world is filled with judgment. Focus on presenting yourself, not your outfit, to the world. It will change how others view you and allow you to judge others less as well.
• More Time – With a commitment to the capsule movement there is definitely less time spent on shopping, trying on clothes, and figuring out what you are going to wear.
• Less Stuff – Another boon is less waste and strain on the environment. Shopping for clothes based on trends leads to wasted resources and human rights violations. Stop the cycle.
• More Money – By paring down to essential pieces, there is an opportunity to save some big moolah. Of course, you could translate that into more luxe essentials, but that’s entirely up to you!

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Girl in Trench Coat Image via Shutterstock

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We all know that fast fashion sucks, but it’s still reallllly hard to resist that trendy piece of clothing that look so good.

And although the main reason most of us pick fast fashion is to curb our voracious fashion appetites, we also pick less than amazing pieces because some clothes are just too expensive. Well, Tom Cridland, British designer of men‘s clothing, has decided to make a jacket that will last 30 years — and it’s not too pricey.

Staying Sustainable

Cridland’s main reason for creating the 30 Year Jacket was to make sustainable fashion that could curb the world’s addiction to cheap clothing.

His sustainable fashion project, which all began with the creation of a 30 Year Sweatshirt, has a lofty goal: “To lead an industry trend into protecting our natural resources by making truly durable clothing,” he says. “We’re [he and his fashion team] trying to get people to think about how they consume their fashion, and we are basically just trying to invoke a bygone era when clothing was made with exquisite care.”

While the jacket is not inexpensive — it costs about $258 — it isn’t that much more expensive than a wool winter coat.

For the Love of Longevity

Cridland also wants people to start buying better-made items once rather than poorly-made items every few years. “They’ll [the pieces] look smarter because they’ll be of better quality, and they’ll last longer,” he says. “And that’s not going to only, you know, benefit them. It’s going to benefit the environment and, of course, it’s going to keep independent brands like mine in business.”

Where to Buy

The jacket is physically available in Los Angeles and New York, but you can check out everything in Cridland’s 30 Year Collection on his website. The designer is selling various versions of the 30 Year Sweatshirt and the 30 Year T-Shirt. You also can see the 30 Year Jacket online. It comes in multiple colors and styles — some versions are made of 100 percent wool, others 100 percent cotton.

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Image of the 30 Year Jacket via Facebook

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Fast fashion is bad. Really bad. But we doubt you can fathom just how bad it actually is.

The below clip comes from “The True Cost” and focuses on how detrimental fast fashion is to the environment. One of the most disturbing facts in the clip is this: Most textiles aren’t biodegradable and can sit in landfills for at least 200 years. As the clothing slowly breaks down, they release harmful chemicals into the air. Boffo.

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H&M could definitely be called the mover and shaker of fast fashion. These guys must offer energy drink mainlining in the breakroom. And with H&M Conscious Beauty soon to launch, they do not appear to be slowing down any time soon.

What began is a little Swedish women’s clothing shop in the ’40s has grown to include store locations worldwide, major designer collabs, controversial red carpet appearances (like the recent SJP Met Gala appearance), and huge online retail sales. Why did we not see H&M beauty coming?

That’s right, the brand is set to launch a massive 700 product beauty line next fall, including makeup, skincare, and hair care. True to its anyone-can-have-this image, products will range from $2.99 to $24.99.

Now, I know what you are thinking. How clean can these H&M cosmetics be? The brand’s concept designer, Sara Wallander, calls the line “fashion for the face.” But are we talking fast fashion, here?

Included in the collection are products aligned with the company’s Conscious collection, called Conscious Beauty. Terms like “organic”, “eco-friendly”, and “sustainable” are being used, and products are to be Ecocert-certified.

The French certification body requires the use of substantial amounts of natural and organic ingredients, environmentally-friendly processes, and prohibits the use of many synthetic ingredients. There are two Ecocert certifications, ECOCERT Natural (a minimum of 50 percent of all plant-based ingredients and a minimum of 5 percent of all ingredients by weight must be organically produced) and ECOCERT Natural and Organic (A minimum of 95 percent of the total product ingredients must be naturally derived and a minimum of 10 percent of all ingredients by weight (includes water) must be organically produced). A press release from the brand stated the beauty products will be “Ecocert-approved sustainable products.”

H&M has said that products from the Conscious Beauty line will be paraben-, silicone-, GMO-, synthetic fragrance-, and dye-free. As always, we will have to wait and read the labels to actually know what is in them. Fingers crossed, H&M’s website will include full ingredient listings.

What do think? Excited to see what the H&M Conscious Beauty line is all about? Or would you rather not support the brand even if the products are safe?

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Image of H&M logo via Vytautas Kielaitis / Shutterstock.com

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If you were beginning to feel swayed by all those trendy frocks and jumpers you’ve seen at H&M lately, DON’T BUY THEM.

John Oliver recently reminded us all why it’s a terrible idea to give into fast fashion. His argument against fast fashion is hilarious, and so spot on.

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ColumnEating well isn’t about consuming the trendiest of health foods. It’s simply about cutting all the bad food out.

There are a lot of parallels that we can draw between food and fashion, and in a world where more and more people are conscious about where there food comes from, why not expand that to where their clothes come from as well?

I read an article this week knocking Vivienne Westwood down for comments she had made both about eating and dressing ethically. “Clothes should cost more – they are so subsidized,” she had said. “Food should cost more too – you know something is wrong when you can buy a cooked chicken for £2.” I agree full heartedly, but a Guardian columnist had taken issue with her statement, pointing out that many of us can’t afford to eat well or shop ethically.

She had a point. Many people live on the poverty line, where access to healthy food is but a slim, if not nonexistent, possibility. The same people probably aren’t in a position to buy the latest from the eco-friendly runway.

The columnist continued:

When people are struggling financially, there is no use getting on your high horse about ethical consumption, as I did after the Bangladeshi textiles factory collapse in 2013. Traumatised and angered by an image of a dead, dust-covered couple lying in each other’s arms, I was furious when a friend of mine continued to shop at Primark. Eventually she broke down in tears. “I can’t afford to look nice otherwise,” she told me.

And therein lies the problem. We are told that to dress ethically and look good, we must buy certain brands, shop at certain stores. And in order to eat healthy, we must buy certain brands, and eat certain foods.

But you can’t buy yourself into an ethical lifestyle. In fact, if anything, living more sustainably, with our shopping and eating habits, is about minimizing.

We live in a mass consumption culture, where quantity trumps quality.

Sure, a pair of $200 ethically produced jeans sounds expensive, but that’s because most of us are used to buying a few pairs of jeans at a time. If you’re used to buying 3 pairs of jeans at a time, then $200 is expensive. But what if you only bought one pair? And if you couldn’t survive with just one pair, what if you chose to buy used instead of new? I know plenty of fashionable, “nice” looking people who buy second hand. There is always an alternative, it’s just that marketing and advertising would have us believe otherwise.

The same goes for food. We overeat. We love that $2 chicken because we can’t just buy one, we can buy 10! What if we trimmed our diets, focused on the stuff that’s truly good for us and cut out the rest? You don’t have to be able to afford packaged, spiced kale chips to eat well. The reality is that it’s not adding exotic, imported superfoods into your breakfast that makes you a healthy, smart eater, it’s loading up on the more boring, local, whole foods. Bad foods out, good foods in.

“I can’t afford to look nice” could just as well be “I can’t afford a cold-pressed juice.” Living ethically has become a fashion in itself, something that if we spend enough money, we too can access. Puffed quinoa breakfast bars and soy single origin lattes. But real food isn’t a fashion accessory, it’s a necessity. Without good food, we perish.

And that’s where food has one thing that fashion doesn’t: we need to eat. Certainly, we need to be clothed, but let’s be honest, no one ever died of bad fashion. Bad food, however, is another story.

Pizza, hamburgers, Big Gulps and Slurpees will in fact put you on the fast track to bad health. But you don’t need to buy the latest and greatest packaged health foods in order to avoid going down it. All you need are healthy, whole foods. Cut out the processed stuff, buy more leafy greens and legumes.

As for your jeans? They too have an impact, and if you’re committed to knowing where your food comes from, start thinking about where your clothes come from too.

Most of us in the Western world could easily live with less, in our closets and our pantries, but we have to make the conscious decision to do so. Are you up for it?

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Image: Troy Morris

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Column Topshop recently launched its third “Reclaim to Wear” capsule collection—an upcycled collection from the label From Somewhere —focused on floral print items including camisoles, culottes, dresses, denim skirts, jackets and jeans. It purports the benefits of upcycling as the new direction of fashion. But is it? We go behind the label to find out.

Topshop, the beloved British clothing retailer, operates more than 400 stores worldwide, with 300 of them in the UK. Four U.S. Topshop locations do quite a bit of business for the chain as well as the 52 stateside Nordstrom locations that sell Topshop items. Three more U.S. stores are slated to open in the next year.

The Good

Topshop has had a considerable amount of success with its Reclaim to Wear collections. “Customer response has, once again, been hugely enthusiastic, encouraging us to further develop the range and tap into the growing profile of upcycling,” says the Arcadia Group, the parent company for Topshop.

“We have been really proud to work with the Topshop team on the Reclaim To Wear collections, inspiring them to include upcycling as part of their practice,” Orsola de Castro and Filippo Ricci, of From Somewhere who launched Reclaim to Wear in 1997 have said of the collection. “This is really an important step: one dress at a time, starting small, we are beginning to see that design can influence not just our style, but the way we think about clothes.”

Now in its third iteration, the success of Reclaim to Wear can only mean the brand is seeing the collection turn into profits. “Reclaim to Wear, our range of up-cycled clothing (created from fabric that would otherwise be treated as waste) continues to grow, both in terms of scale and worldwide availability,” says the Arcadia Group, “last year’s [Reclaim to Wear] collection sold out in a matter of days.” Customers want upcycled fashion, it seems.

How environmentally-friendly is the brand in general?

According to the Arcadia Group, “some” of its brands adhere to “progressive environmental initiatives in place at our factories including rainwater harvesting for dyeing processes, dryers equipped with heat recovery units for energy efficiency and energy-efficient lighting.”

Specifically, the Arcadia Group says that Topshop follows a “sustain” initiative “that aims to deliver sustainability into the brand’s ranges via a mix of local sourcing, reclamation and environmentally friendly processes.”

In its UK backyard, Topshop’s ‘Made in the UK’ project goes “from strength to strength, reflecting a wider trend of sourcing some products closer to home.”

The Arcadia Group says that packaging standards for suppliers “have been in place for a number of years and they already save the business approximately 500 tonnes of excess packaging a year.”

With an emphasis on decreasing the carbon footprint of its brands, the Arcadia Group participates in the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan (SCAP)’s 2020 commitment, which “aims to improve the UK clothing industry’s environmental footprint.”

The Bad

Topshop may be doing well with its upcycled collection, but it’s lumped in the fast-fashion category along with retailers like Forever 21, Zara and H&M. It has a history of controversy, including human rights issues connected to using cotton picked in Uzbekistan by slaves. Topshop also refused to join the Ethical Trading Initiative that earned it criticism from the student campaign group People & Planet.

The chain was also targeted over issues with tax payments in 2010 and 2011, specifically, protesters took aim at CEO Philip Green’s wife, who they said was “living in a tax haven,” and essentially protecting Green’s money from taxes.

Fans of Rihanna may recall that the superstar won a lawsuit against the retailer in 2013, seeking $1.4 million in damages because the chain used images of her face on T-shirts without her permission.

Just last month, Brazilian mall owners sued Topshop for failure to pay rent, even though there have been lines of customers out the door, in some cases, with a four-hour wait.

The Questionable

In recent news, Topshop is taking its clothing to China—not to be manufactured, but to sell—via online retailer Shangpin.com. But is it in poor taste when the brand has been called out extensively for its support of sweatshop conditions, even if they’re not in China? Topshop was targeted in 2007 by the UK advocacy group No Sweat, for allegedly employing slave labor conditions at factories in Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka. According to No Sweat, Jane Shepherdson, who resigned from Topshop as brand director, said “consumers cannot keep buying cheap clothes and ‘not ask where they come from.’”

Topshop was also called out for its 2007 Kate Moss collection, which used sweatshop conditions and slave labor.

According to TriplePundit:

Topshop’s sweatshop labor scandal goes back at least ten years when it was revealed that the store was using immigrant laborers working in potentially dangerous conditions in London’s East End. More recently, the chain has been accused of keeping costs down and boosting billionaire Sir Philip Green’s empire by giving minimal pay to Sri Lankans, Indians and Bangladeshis to work 12 hour days, six days a week producing Kate Moss’s popular Topshop clothing line. An undercover investigation by a British news channel also got footage of “dirty, dangerous and appalling conditions” in a UK factory, and found employees being paid illegally at half the minimum wage.

There was also a bit of a struggle with the retailer over the Bangladeshi Safety Accord. Only after months of relentless pressure, Topshop finally joined the Bangladeshi Safety Accord last year. More than 80 top fashion brands had already signed in support of preventing disasters like Rana Plaza from happening ever again before Topshop agreed.

So, even if the brand is offering “upcycled” collections and taking some steps to reduce its carbon footprint, can those  small eco collections really cancel out labor and human rights issues? Does it mean that tax and rent evasion, or stealing celebrity likeness for profit don’t matter? Of course not.

Add to that the fact that Reclaim to Wear’s “upcycled” clothing isn’t coming from the piles of clothes going to landfills every year. The company is simply upcycling production scraps from other collections. Meaning, Reclaim to Wear isn’t decreasing the production of “new” clothing, its existence actually relies on it. So in that sense, how upcycled is it really?

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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Is a closet fashion stylist the answer to our clothing and confidence issues? 

Sustainability is on the minds of many fashion lovers these days. We’ve given up fast fashion. We swap and trade instead of buying new, scour thrift stores and invest in high-quality organic pieces of clothing. But there’s another, even more effective answer to the sustainability quandary that’s been right under noses this whole time: shopping our own closets. It may help boost our self-confidence too, not to mention save us oodles of money.

Meet Megan M. Evans, founder of the Well Coiffed Closet. The South Carolina native operates her closet makeover businesses in her hometown of Charleston as well as in New York City and Los Angeles, where she currently resides.

What is “shopping your closet?” It’s about as straightforward as it sounds. Evans comes to your home, helps you to organize and “edit” your closet (a term as an editor that I totally love!). She also helps you to better understand your personal style and the colors that look best on you. Then she picks out outfit ideas to help you re-inspire your wardrobe.

Megan was kind enough to give me a closet makeover, one I sorely needed. And she had her work cut out for her. Before becoming a mom a year ago, I was a bit of a psycho neat-freak (once you have a kid you learn to live in a state of perpetually almost-clean). There was just one area where that didn’t hold true: my closet. I’m a t-shirt hoarder and so is my partner. (We often joke that between his t-shirt collection and mine, it’s going to be our daughter’s rather pathetic dowry.) In fact, I don’t like throwing any clothes away as it just seems like a waste. Of course I donate some old clothes, but I have this idea that someday I’ll need an item that I donated and be forced to buy it new, which just feels so wrong. Add to that the fact that I’m still breastfeeding and holding onto a few extra pounds since the pregnancy, and there’s a closet full of stuff that doesn’t fit me so great. Yay.

But Megan wasn’t intimidated. She’s worked with a lot of new moms too, which made me feel hopeful. Her upbeat positivity and Southern charm also made me feel at home letting an otherwise total stranger sort through my messy closet. “Everything you see in front of you is something you should be able to wear right now,” she said. And for me, that wasn’t the case. Her goal is really to help women build confidence, and love what they see in their closets. Besides being a mom, I work at home, which means jeans and tees are my go-to looks. Honestly, somedays I rock the PJs or workout clothes ALL DAY. So when there are other places for me to be, where, you know, I need to actually look like a human, I struggle for something cute to wear. (Don’t even get me started on brushing my hair.)

After spending years in PR and the film industry, Megan started the Well Coiffed Closet in 2010. She was that friend who would help her friends find amazing outfits to wear when they were staring at piles of gorgeous clothes they didn’t know what to do with. She’d makeover their closets and really loved doing it. Finally, she took an image consulting and stylist program at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City and began launching her business, which just took off from there.

As we started into my bedroom closet, her first order of business was rehanging all items on slim line hangers (you can get them at Bed, Bath & Beyond). Not only does it maximize hanging space, but everything looks uniform and way more organized than my old mishmash of hangers.

We then “edited” my closet for items with stains, holes or that just looked wrong on me. “Look at the pieces and take out what you’re not wearing and find out why: is it too big, too small, does it need a refresh?” she asks. “Is there a piece you can change the buttons on to make it feel new? Take those pieces out first and go through the process of why,” she says. It made absolute sense as we went through every single item and discussed each piece. I was surprised at the emotional attachments I had to clothes, both those I wore a lot and the items I’d hardly ever worn! Clothing really does play a powerful role in who we are, how we present ourselves and how we feel.

After we edited it down, Megan started her magic and reorganized by season, color and length. We hung as much as we could, even some tees that I could wear for (the often-elusive) date-night. We identified some needs I have as well, such as a good blazer, a pair of pumps and black jeans. “Spend less on the pieces that are trendy for only a season,” she says. “Invest in classic timeless pieces like [the blazer or pumps].” She also addressed the ever-changing fashion trends. For example, skinny jeans may be out right now but they’ll be back, so there’s no reason to ditch a classic pair of jeans because something else is trending. “If it feels too young or outdated, those are the things you definitely need to get rid of, but hang onto classics,” she says.

Another rule she swears by is if she’s buying something new—either for a client or herself—something else has to go. She also recommends sticking to shopping for the seasons, after you’ve done an “edit” and identified needs. And never impulse buy. “People leave tags on items in their closets and have nothing to wear them with because they just don’t know what to do with those impulse items,” she says.

After the edit came the really fun part: “shopping” my own closet. Megan gets to work. “Know what colors work best for you,” she stresses. “Wearing the right color can make you feel more alive and people will say you look great, even if you’re not wearing any makeup. Color is key.” She uses color swatches to identify the best colors for your skin tone (I’m best in warm “autumn” tones). So with that in mind, she pulled three outfits for me: something I can wear for a work meeting or event, a date night getup, and an outfit for a wedding next weekend in Palm Springs. I was kind of in shock at the results (and the quickness with which she pulled the outfits together). Those pants with that shirt? Duh. How did I never think of that? She did an incredible job. (She even included the Akola necklace (center) that I scored in our Fair Trade and Fabulous September Box!) They were great outfits that I will actually wear and instantly new variations on those combos came to my mind. It was like she unlocked a new way of seeing my wardrobe with just a few idea suggestions.

It really feels like a weight has been lifted and like I have an entirely new wardrobe, and I haven’t purchased anything new—in fact, I threw out a whole heck of a lot even after I did a cursory purge before she came. “The goal is not to spend to thousands on a new wardrobe,” says Megan. “The idea is you want to be able to see everything in a way that allows you to shop your closet and mix and match new looks.” Not only is it a sustainable fashion solution, it’s a confidence building one, too. And that looks great on everybody.

Check out Megan and her team of closet stylists at wellcoiffedcloset.com.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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image (top) Amy,  Jill Ettinger

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