Upholding the promise...

A very happy #SustainableSunday to ya'll, all the way from hot and sunny Las Vegas!

As I've written quite a bit lately, my full-time teaching position has turned out to be not quite what I had expected and it kinda, sorta took over my life. I've been doing lots of re-evaluating and trying to figure out the best ways to retain my sanity, and here's what I've come up with:

: put in what I get out so I get the job done without going crazy

: stay no more than an hour late after school. This way, I can return home and refocus on important things like yoga, meditating, and getting my body back into dance shape.

: indulge in the things that I love, i.e. sustainable fashion and travel.

That being said, I am working to uphold a promise that I made to myself an eon ago and broke when I started blogging full-time. About 8 years ago, I was going to grad school, working several part-time jobs in addition to running an etsy store, babysitting, and tutoring. I didn't have to pay rent or anything, but I was coming down from having been a store manager and having had a continual stream of fast fashion rush through my closet. Without my employee discount, I was having a hard time keeping up with trends while still managing to save what I could (because at that point, paying for grad school and getting to a place where I had to pay rent was my life goal). To this end, I decided to only buy clothing that was second hand or eco-friendly. This meant that all sustainable brands, consignment shops, and thrift stores were my number one source of style.

I was really good about upholding this promise for several years. I gave myself a $50/month budget to spent on clothes and I got good at re-purposing things when I could. And then I started : the daily savant :

It took about a year, but the offers from Asian wholesalers started pouring in and I fell off my sustainable high horse and gobbled up any and all offers for free clothing, because well... free clothes. I've been playing the blogging game for just over 4 years now and it has really been only over the last year that I've re-dedicated myself to sustainable fashion, be it fair trade, eco-friendly or second hand. Since moving to Vegas, my closet full of fast fashion has disenchanted me, especially since I'm moving from the wardrobe of a free-spirited hippie dance teacher to that of a more restrained school teacher.

Because I am trying to give my bogged-down life a lift, I've decided to recommit myself to my ages-old promise to sustainable and secondhand fashion, because I know that I can definitely feel good when I know that I am doing my part to reduce poverty, overuse of chemicals, of am helping to cut down on the waste that the people of the world create. While you may still see some wholesale brands featured here, I am largely cutting these collaborations out in favor of collaborations with companies that are all about helping the world!

What is your favourite way to wear sustainable fashion? What's your favourite sustainable brand?