Clo.Outfit: Shiny Black Patialas

I have all these patiala salwars from my traditional Indian dresses that I rarely wear. Just wearing these once or twice a year does not do them any justice. So I slowly started incorporating my Indian dresses into daily wear and I got a huge dose of inspiration from Ranbir Kapoor's outfits in the movie Rockstar. Wonder why I didn't try this out before.. ahh well, it's never too late. I also like how these pants + boots combo make them look similar to Tintin's pants.

What I'm wearing:

Pants: Patiala shalwar worn as pants

White top: H&M

Sleeveless top: Bought in India (worn as a vest)

Belt: Vegan

Shoes: Steve Madden; Vegan

Chain: Handmade 'awkward robot' pendant (I named him K) from Etsy

Jacket: Kenneth Cole; Vegan

Clo.Chat: Towards a Sustainable Wardrobe: Step 2: Know What You Need and What You Don't!

This post is a part of the series: Towards a Sustainable Wardrobe

**Long Post Alert**

A while back, I counted all my clothes and shoes. The second logical stage of the Towards a Sustainable Wardrobe is Know What You Need or What You Don't!

In other words purge mercilessly!

In my case, I had purged 2 months before I counted my clothes (you see, the idea to count clothes did not yet take shape in my mind). So I took up Step 2 and then Step 1. Which is why I came up with 280 clothing items. I'm sure that the pre-purge count would easily be over 380.

Purging is not the easiest of tasks. But if you care to know, here is what I learned over a few years of closely observing my behavioral patterns:

1. I usually purge when I'm slightly pissed off or angry (at the world, at large). This mindset, I have found to ignite an unforgiving streak; which, in my opinion, is the key to a good purge. 
2. I believe in this rule: If I have not wore it in the past 1 year, I'm not going to wear it in the next 1 year. I don't apply this rule to clothes that could be reused either in a different form or as fabric. I also don't apply this rule to versatile pieces like scarves, sarees, well tailored jackets, vests, shirts, fabric with a paisley designs*. There are a few more exceptions, but you get my point.
3. That's it :) 

* I'm a total sucker for paisley designs.

What do I with all those clothes after a purge? Here are a few things I have done before:

PASS IT DOWN: A very prevalent concept in India (and I'm sure in other countries, as well) where you get to wear your older sister's clothes and accessories. Pass it on, Pass it down, Pass it over :)

DONATE: Every city/town has its own clothing donation centers. The usual suspects in the US are the Salvation Army, Goodwill International Centers, Housing Works etc. The city of New York tied up with Housing Works on a textile recycling program called re-Fashion NYC . Under this program, you can sign up your building to keep a textile donation box on the premises. The idea is to make donating clothes as easy as dropping of recyclables. Most of these programs accept shoes also. But if you are looking for specific shoe donation centers, look up Soles4Souls, Nike.

RECYCLE: Wearable Collections has textile collection trucks/boxes around NYC. One convenient location: The Green Market at Union Square.

The Wearable Collections Philosophy.  Source: Wearable Collections.

RESELL: If you own well maintained branded/ vintage garments, you can sell them on ebay, craigslist, Big Wardrobe (swap/resell) or to local establishments. For example, in New York I found a shop called Second Time Around. They look for designer clothes and accessories in great condition and resell these pieces. You get a pre-decided percentage of the resale price when the piece you gave away sells. It is a cool shop, check it out. I found a Betsey Johnson hounds-tooth skirt in superb condition for $30 there. Woot!

Source: Big Wardrobe

REMAKE: If you got the skill of the needle and/or the creativity or know people who do, you can take an old garment and make something else out of it!

There I go again, I owe you more cookies now that I've made you read this super long post! Hit me up anytime to claim those cookies ;)

Ho.Guests: De-Plastification

by Minu Agarwal

Hi P, thank you for inviting me to foocloho. Loving it! I'm here to share my thoughts about something I dread: PLASTIC. A friend once told me about a product-designer friend of his, who was designing packaging for a disposable shaver. The packaging looked cool, but apparently the packaging had more plastic in it than the shaver! That just stuck in my head and since then have been trying to rid my life of all unnecessary plastic.

First one to go was liquid body wash (contained in a plastic bottle) replaced by the trusty old soap bar. Who wants to smell like a pomegranate anyway after a shower? So in the last two years, we (my husband and I) 'prevented' or at least reduced the demand for 24 plastic bottles. I now buy soap at all kinds of discount stores like Marshalls etc. which have awesome deals on high quality triple milled soaps. They last longer, don't dry out the skin and leave less scum. Also got me a nice soap dish to make sure they dry out after use. I do keep a small bottle of liquid soap for guests, in case they don't want to use the 'communal' soap.

Also, when I buy soap bars, I look out for packaging that can be used in some way instead of just tossing it out. I found soap bars packaged in pretty boxes (as seen below) at Marshalls. I reuse them as a jewelry boxes or just to store small knick knacks. But no matter where you buy or what packaging the soap bars come in, I think we can safely assume that the soap bar packaging is usually less wasteful than liquid soap.

I reused this box to store jewelry

All images taken by Minu Agarwal

About Minu:
Minu works in the field of Sustainable Design. She shares what she enjoys most with her family and friends on her provocatively titled blog: "What's wrong with the right things?". She recently discovered her passion for being an entrepreneur with a venture started in early 2011 called realism.in. Minu lives with her husband in Atlanta working towards her way to a dream retirement in the Himalayas. When I asked her about what she likes to do in her free time, she said: 'apart from annoying my husband, I like to cook, snoop around the city on my bike and paint'.

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Thank you for your contribution Minu, I'm sure foocloho-ians will enjoy this read!