For many Americans, the Halloween routine goes something like this: buy a costume, wear it once, throw it out. The problem: We send about 13 million tons of textile waste into landfills every year. The solution? That may be a long, twisty turny road, but I can definitely get you started in the right direction.
Check out my latest feature on Remake.world titled Conscious Costuming: Tips & Tricks For Dressing Sustainably This Year.
I’m sure it comes as no surprise that Halloween has long been a holiday that garners a great deal of unnecessary waste. It never made sense that people spend all this money on an outfit to be worn once, maybe twice, to then collect dust in the back of a closet at best. There’s got to be a more conscious way to costume-up for this iconic holiday.
It’s time we rewrite the rules of what it means to ‘dress up’ for Halloween. Wouldn’t it be fun and worth the challenge to only source costume items that we could and would repurpose into our everyday attire, or better yet from our already owned everyday attire? I bet you could come up with a number of costumes right now using items that you already own, such as:
A little black dress: Holly Go Lightly
A maxi dress: flower child
Black leggings + tank: Bat woman
Biker jacket + cuffed jeans: Rizzo from Grease
Check out the full feature on Remake.world and please let me know what you think. Was this useful? Helpful? Did it spark your creativity to come up with something cool and unique? Make sure you share pics on Instagram and tag both myself @iamlauramadden + @remakeourworld
If you’re not familiar with Remake, they are a nonprofit based in San Francisco with a global reach, creating a conscious consumer movement of helping women use fashion for good. I serve on the Remake advisory board and am also a global ambassador for Phoenix, AZ. Remake has a goal of remaking the closets of 1 million women by 2025. This is the future of fashion. Will you join the movement?
Photo: Aaron Blackburn Photography