New year, new goal: Low Buy Challenge
February 1, 2021How have you been coping with the COVID pandemic? I admit that I have been having a hard time and my 2020 consumption reflects that. Retail therapy, even secondhand, is not good for the environment. I ended up buying 27 items of clothing, including two linen dresses, three cashmere sweaters, two pairs of jeans, two…
Slow Furniture: Interview with Mireille Granger
January 12, 2021While most of you are already aware of the negative effects of fast fashion on the environment, have you considered the impact of its equally evil sister, fast furniture? Much like fast fashion, fast furniture is mass produced, low cost and generally poor quality, which means it ends up in landfill more quickly. Like many…
Sustainable Online Shopping
September 13, 2020Did you know that there are approximately 100 billion garments produced each year? Since there are only about 8 billion people on the planet, this means that there are far too many garments being made. Since fashion is the number two most polluting industry for the environment, the best thing that we can do as…
Zero Waste in the Time of COVID-19
March 23, 2020I couldn’t help but make a not so veiled reference to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. With COVID-19 upon us, life has changed in many ways, especially for someone buying things in bulk. On March 5th, Bulk Barn stopped accepting containers. I went to Bulk Barn on the 6th and was given the announcement. The woman behind…
10 Changes for the New Year
January 12, 2020Happy New Year everyone! I hope that everyone enjoyed the holiday festivities with good food, family and friends and a little Christmas cheer. As it is a new year, it is normal to reflect on the past year and think about the changes and improvements that we want to make in our lives. Clean air…
Don’t Shop, Swap!
December 15, 2019With Christmas upon us and Black Friday pushing us to buy, buy, buy clothing at discounted prices, I think that we all to stop and ask ourselves if we really need more clothes. Clothing waste is an increasingly large problem. With the advent of fast fashion houses like H&M and Zara encouraging weekly shopping, women…
Summer Capsule Wardrobe: 10×10 Challenge
September 3, 2019While I still have too many pieces for a true capsule wardrobe of 33 or 39 pieces, I enjoy completing the 10×10 challenge. For those of you who don’t know about this challenge created by Lee Vosburgh (aka Stylebee https://www.stylebee.ca/10-x-10-challenge/ ), it involves taking 10 pieces from your wardrobe and wearing them for 10 days. …
Upscale Vintage Shopping for a Black Purse
August 11, 2019Although I enjoyed my experiment shopping at Value Village / Village des Valeurs, this is not a place that I intend to do all my second hand item shopping. I only want to buy items that I love and will keep a long time. I am also not afraid to spend a little more to…
4 Steps to Reducing your waste
June 13, 2019Spring is here and with the arrival of a new season, our thoughts also turn to personal changes. My colleague Fany is a busy, working mother of two young girls. The other day, she asked me to coach her on zero waste/reduce our waste living. It can be overwhelming. I used to be one of…
Fashion Challenge: Not Wearing Black
May 5, 2019As of March 20th, spring is officially here. Not in my wardrobe though! Perhaps like some of you, I am getting tired of wearing black. Black is slimming, timeless and easy to wear, however, it is easy for it to become your go to when dressing. Now that a new season is upon us, I…