Have You Considered… Recycling Your Old Outfits?

Let your mantra be ‘tweak and repeat’ this party season.

With the year quickly coming to a close and the holidays on the horizon, your party agenda is about to hit full peak. While you might think that you need a new look for every different event on your calendar – like the work end of year party, family gatherings, New Year celebrations and the like – consider the styles that are already sitting in your closet first or investing in outfits that you know you’re going to wear more than once. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by how many perfectly good options you’ve got hiding in the back of your wardrobe from previous occasions and how many looks you can get from just one dress or playsuit.

In celebration of National Recycling Week, let’s get creative and make outfit repeating a forever trend, for the party season and beyond. Recycling outfits is a great way to reduce our consumption habits and the impact they have on the environment and the wider community. Don’t be scared of making an outfit repeat - we’re cancelling the idea of it being a fashion faux pas - because wearing the same thing on multiple occasions is completely normal. We’re proud to be repeat fashion offenders!

Even the Instagram influencers you follow, who might never appear on your feed wearing the same thing twice, are actually repeat fashion offenders too. Take @_yanyanchan for example, who posted an Instagram pic not long ago wearing a recycled outfit with the caption “This season I am re-wearing all of my old clothes and outfit repeating as much as I can throughout fashion week instead of buying new pieces for the sake of having a new outfit and it feels nice J I’m lucky enough to have access to showrooms and designers who lend me beautiful pieces to dress up in, but I’m trying to cut consumption wherever I can and hope to encourage you to do the same. Buy less, and come up with as many ways as possible to wear the same items of clothing.” We couldn’t have said it any better, but we also might not have noticed the outfit repeat had her caption not spelled it out for us.

@_yanyanchan

Other repeat fashion offenders we are inspired by include the royals – Meghan, Kate and Queen Elizabeth each have a few favourite staples they like to recycle – but the most impressive recycled outfit was by Rita Moreno, who wore her exact same dress from 1962 to the 2018 Oscars. The bodice was tweaked and her accessories were given a modern update, but as for the skirt “It’s been hanging in my closet!” for the last 56 years, she proudly claimed during a red carpet interview.

Rita Moreno at the Oscars 2018 via Getty Images/ Oscars 1962 photo from the Battmann Collection

So, before you start shopping for new special occasion dresses, first look in your wardrobe for outfits that can be recycled. If you need to shop new, keep in mind what styles will have longevity and make a Considered decision.

Shop THE ICONIC Considered