In 2021, my main talent was making up brilliant excuses as to why I could consume more clothes. It’s second hand! I want to support charities. But it’s ethically made. I don’t have anything like this in my wardrobe. I want to support local businesses. I don’t actually buy that much.

All true statements, but all statements that kept me wrapped up in the shackles of consumerism. I started to feel yuck. An uncomfortable feeling crept over me as I continued to hero sustainable fashion online while realising more and more what the root problem of the fashion industry actually is…

We consume too much. Specifically, 100 billion garments a year.

As a response to my discomfort, I committed to freeze my wardrobe for a year.

No new clothes. Nothing second hand. No fresh undies. No jewellery. Nothing. Not even the skirt my grandmother tried to palm off to me.

I explain more about why I embarked on my 2022 Wardrobe Freeze here, but now we’re halfway through 2023 and I am truly on the other side. I’ve climbed the Wardrobe Freeze mountain and I can tell you now: it looks fucking great from the top.

My Wardrobe Freeze taught me far more than I ever expected. The personal growth brought on by this challenge is comparable to my counselling sessions. So much so that it has taken me 6 months to properly digest my 2022 challenge and put pen to paper in the hopes you’ll learn from my wardrobe experiment too.

I didn’t buy clothes for a year and this happened…

I saw my wardrobe for what it was.

With my wardrobe ‘frozen’, I was forced to get incredibly familiar with what I already had. I realised that shopping for clothes as a leisurely activity is like going to the supermarket without having a clue what is in your pantry or any idea of what ingredients go together. Essentially, it’s stupid. Yet we all do it - while wasting incredible amounts of money and time. Cutting off any opportunity to even consider adding something else to my wardrobe encouraged me to spend a lot of time in it. 6 months in I was still creating new outfit combinations. Heck, if right now you asked me to create a new outfit that I’ve never worn before, I could easily do it. Most people wear less than 50% of their wardrobes and couldn’t tell you everything that’s in there. I have zero wardrobe secrets. No piles of textiles shoved into the back corners. I know exactly what is in it and I can even flick through my wardrobe in my mind when I see something I like and want to know what it would go with. 12 months with the same clothes will do that to you!

I found a favourite hobby.

Instead of shopping or spending my mental energy deciding if I should get that cute pair of overalls I saw on Instagram, I spent time with my current wardrobe. This wasn’t a new hobby for me, but it has become one of my favourites. These days you’ll find me in my wardrobe on the weekend scouring the seams of each garment, considering adding embroidery to old jeans, hand washing garments lovingly, and making an alterations pile for my seamstress. A wardrobe audit is one of my favourite hobbies. It’s much cheaper than a trip to the mall, involves less road rage, no small talk with annoying acquaintances you’re bound to bump into, and you can do it without pants on.

I questioned the work of other ethical influencers.

I follow a lot of other ethical fashion influencers online, but the Wardrobe Freeze has made it hard for me to watch them. While I absolutely respect that an ethical fashion influencer needs to make a living and that usually requires trying the garments from a brand before creating content about them, posts of new stuff every week leaves a foul taste in my mouth. The amount of clothing that fashion brands are prepared to gift influencers is outrageous. I could write a few emails and arrange for a new garment to arrive every day if I wanted to. I whole heartedly believe in ‘each to their own’ and won’t hold other ethical fashion influencers to my own personal code of conduct, but I have started unfollowing or muting some of them who continue encouraging overconsumption. I don’t care if your tights are hand made from recycled fibres; you don’t need 10 of them and you just got another pair last week.

I still made money as a sustainable fashion influencer.

My Wardrobe Freeze demonstrated that you CAN earn an income as an ethical fashion influencer while consuming less. I put my job on the line when I committed to the Wardrobe Freeze, but I also got creative. I worked with brands that were already in my wardrobe. I engaged family members who needed clothes and were willing to be in pictures and videos online. I shared the brand’s images instead of my own. I borrowed new garments for photoshoots and quality control and gave them back afterwards. It was a great exercise because it filtered out the brands who weren’t willing to change the way influencers work with companies. The brands who only wanted me to flit about in their new products and say that they’re ‘the best and your life will be complete when you buy something new’ went quiet.

I started to hate second hand shops.

Don’t hate me, but I don’t want to go op shopping with you. I never thought I would say those words, but that’s just how I feel. I thought I would race back into second hand stores and scream ‘honey I’m home!’ when the 1st of January 2023 hit, but I’ve avoided them. I’ve been wrestling with my thoughts publicly on social media and have determined that my dislike of thrift shops is due to a few things:

They remind me of how many clothes exist and that they are still being manufactured at unsustainable frequencies.
I’m not living in my own home, I don’t have a house to fill with household items, so I don’t enjoy the hunt as much.
Second hand shops are often filled with bad quality fast fashion items.
I am content with what I have and when I do need something I find it less overwhelming to buy it from an ethical store instead.
Second hand stores allow people (myself included) to feel the addictive sensations of consumerism at a lower cost and with less guilt. I’ve said goodbye to those feelings and I don’t want to go back.

I ended up with less clothes.

17 items left my wardrobe during my Wardrobe Freeze. I guess that breaks the freeze because it wasn’t technically frozen! Hah. But seriously, you would have thought I would have held onto each garment with desperation, knowing I couldn’t replace anything. But to my first point: I saw my wardrobe for what it was and I became more aware of my style.

This is what I removed from my wardrobe:

x1 old nightshirt

x2 skirts (I simply don’t like skirts and only have one now)

x7 socks (that I didn’t wear or were beyond repair)

x1 long sleeved top

x1 pair of jeans

x2 pants

x3 t-shirts

I rehomed a pair of blue jeans that I thought were a ‘staple in every wardrobe’ but actually sat at a weird place on my hips. I gave a friend my white t-shirt. A stylist once told me that everyone needs a plain white t-shirt so that advice stuck in my head. But I hardly used it. Out it went.

I bought clothes again in 2023.

As planned, my Wardrobe Freeze lasted a year. I have bought new clothes since! A tulle top (pictured below) from Standard Issue (they’re a brand partner of mine so they gave it to me), some undergarments, an exercise top, and a set from Rupahaus that saw me through most days of our 3 month trip in India. I never intended to freeze my wardrobe forever and I am incredibly happy with my new consumption habits. I thought about the Standard Issue top for most of 2022, realising how much of an asset it would be to my wardrobe (it’s my most worn garment at the moment!). I no longer buy underwear just because it’s on sale and ‘you can never have too many pairs of undies’ - I hand washed my underwear throughout India and absolutely could live with about 5 pairs of underwear in total. I still have my ‘consider it for a month before you buy it’ rule and recently said no to a top that I had considered for a month, thought about often, but wasn’t quite perfect. Back in 2021 I absolutely would have bought it.

I felt liberated.

Owning clothes is a massive responsibility. Washing it, repairing it, storing it, folding it, wearing it enough to justify the cost, feeling guilty when you don’t wear it enough, rehoming it responsibly when you’re no longer finished with it… owning clothes takes time, mental capacity, and responsibility. I believe that the burden of owning a garment is only worth it when the garment fulfils you. I could argue that 15 Kowtow dresses would fulfil me, but the guilt of them hanging lonely in my wardrobe for months (there are only so many dresses I can wear at one time) would be too detrimental. At first it feels like a burden to properly understand the seriousness of being a custodian of a garment, but over time it helps liberate your decision making. To add to this liberation is the ease in life when consumerism no longer clutches at your heartstrings. Oh the utter bliss of walking into a store and admiring clothes while knowing you do not have to own them to find joy in them! Oh the glee in my stride as I walk out of shops or walk away from market stalls without any guilt of denying the shop attendant a sale.

I am more me.

I can not recommend a Wardrobe Freeze more. The thought used to scare me. I nearly didn’t do it. But now I fear what life would be like without having done it. Knowing my wardrobe is freeing and saves me time in the morning. Enjoying fashion without owning it is a glorious sensation. Only wearing clothes that I meticulously care for and have considered deeply, ensures I always dress like ME.

I wasn’t going to do this… I was going to end softly… but I cannot help myself…

I challenge you to the Wardrobe Freeze.

P.S. If you’ve already done the freeze with me, let me know how it went on this post!