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Ethical and green living

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Check the waistband – and beware sneaky jargon: the expert guide to buying clothes that last

Should you look for French seams or overlocking? Is dry-clean only a red flag? And how do you spot quality when shopping online? We asked the pros • How to make your leather last a lifetime Take a look at the outfit you’re wearing now: how many times have you worn each item? And how long have you had them? Just over 10 years ago, Eco-Age founder Livia Firth and journalist Lucy Siegle launched the 30 wears challenge to encourage people to buy clothes they would wear at least 30 times. The 30 wears challenge is a great concept. As a journalist interested in sustainable fashion, I’ve enjoyed appl

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‘People sell their best stuff on Vinted’ – how charity shops became a dumping ground for unsellable clothes

Swamped with ‘daily avalanches’ of soiled items and poor-quality fast fashion, secondhand stores are in crisis. What went wrong with people’s good intentions? And is it possible to donate more effectively? The small stockroom of St Raphael’s Hospice charity shop in Cheam, south London, is rammed with donations. “On average, we get 30 to 50 bags a day,” says Caroline Worley, the commercial manager, “but it’s not unusual to receive over 100.” This might sound like a good problem to have, but the sheer volume of stuff is the shop’s biggest challenge. “Sometimes, there’s only [enough] floor space

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‘I wanted to find the slowest fashion imaginable’: the woman growing her own dress

Looking for an alternative to fast fashion, Eve Ogden Schaub decided to create a garment from homegrown flax From crop tops to shorts and brightly patterned dresses, many of today’s clothes are the result of fast fashion. But one woman is taking a radical approach to challenging this trend by growing her own dress. Eve Ogden Schaub is in the midst of a project to create a linen garment made from flax she is growing at home, documenting the process in videos shared on her Instagram account. Continue reading...

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Hide and chic: are clothes and apparel made from alternative leathers better for the environment?

Vegan leathers are complicated by questions of commercial viability and sustainability. How do they compare to traditional leather? Change by degrees offers life hacks and sustainable living tips each Saturday to help reduce your household’s carbon footprint Got a question or tip for reducing household emissions? Email us at changebydegrees@theguardian.com In sustainable fashion, breathless promises about vegan leather have arrived thick and fast for over a decade. Innovations promise mushroom and cactus alternatives that look and feel like real leather – minus the negative associations with m