cradle

One more post on clothing / shopping.

I did end up buying a linen dress on Etsy to satisfy the need for a dress to wear when it's too hot and humid. It's a my first custom order, pretty excited to receive it :D Even if the sizing isn't perfect, Bath does not seem to lack in tailors so I can adjust as necessary.

I also bought another navy skirt when I went to browse H&M as I was interested in a dress there before making the Etsy purchase. Reason for purchase: I like the design and it was cheap (on sale for 8.10GBP)

The stock photo doesn't do it enough justice. I was very pleasantly surprised at how well it holds its shape on the body. It also works for both daily and special occasion wear, so hopefully my friends will start getting married soon. I've been avoiding white or black dresses because I want to start attending weddings ;_;

Overall, I have quite a good personal experience with H&M clothing. The many pieces I've had over the years have all held up really well (notably the 2 wool-mix coats) and I'm consistently the same size in every piece.

This is where I segue to topic #2 of this post: responsible fashion! The link being H&M as they actually rank pretty high on Fashion Revolution's 2018 Fashion Transparency Index. Adidas is another brands that I was surprised by, they did well o:

I see a lot of discussion on /r/ffa about sustainability and ethical fashion and was surprised that no comments mentioned that site & its resources. I read through their two fanzines*, which has a good mix of high level analysis and personal actionable items. I did just break my new years resolution of stop buying from fast fashion retailers with the H&M skirt purchase, but reading the fanzines have re-motivated me to stick to the resolution from now on. Another takeaway is that I'm going to do better than the UK average of owning clothing pieces for 3.3 years. I think most of my clothes are older than that, but now to actually keep track. If I'm motivated enough, I'll even make another attempt at an excel inventory and track cost per wear. Maybe I'll start small and track purchases from here on, then categorize the clothes here in UK, and finally remaining clothes after I head back. One more takeaway is their idea of writing love letters to your most cherished pieces. I sort of do that with some of shoes here on the blog, so I'll expand on that.

*the fuller context is that I'm experiencing withdraw after reading The Moon that Rises in the Day, the setup of which I'm a huge sucker for (Doha ;_; !!!!!) A symptom of manga withdraw is that I feel repulsed to can't read another series since that's betraying my feels. So I read reports instead XD usually on food system