Fewer, Better Clothes: Sustainable Fashion with Mini-Cycle

It was almost four years ago that I started to wonder about who made my clothes. And a whole lot of other follow-up questions, like: How were the makers being treated? How much were they paid? How long are their work days? Do they get a lunch break? Maybe I should have thought about all of those things sooner - the people that made the clothing on my back - but, regardless, it was almost four years ago that those questions started to eat away at me if I didn't make a change. It has been a slow, imperfect journey since, with over two decades of fast fashion habits and mentality to break down while building a lifestyle around slow fashion.

Four years later, and my focus on ethical fashion has broadened to include sustainability, with a few equally important follow-up questions to add, such as: How are my clothes made? What materials are they made from? What will happen when they are no longer of use to me? Can they be reused? Can they be recycled? If not, how long will they sit in a landfill before returning to the earth?

It's no longer enough for me to simply wonder about who made my clothes - there's a start-to-finish process that needs closer examination. And that's why I'm so excited to share Mini-Cycle with you, a "zero waste kids fashion" store with a beautiful beginning-to-end vision of what truly sustainable fashion can look like - something that celebrates and honours our earth, instead of rapidly destroying it.



The Mini-Cycle
Mini-Cycle wants to take responsibility for the clothing it offers, creating a closed loop cycle where only high-quality and durable children's clothing is purchased and reused. Here's how it works:


Pre-Cycle: Selling durable, high-quality children's clothes (both new and used) that were made ethically sustainably.
Mid-Cycle: Buying back all apparel purchased from Mini-Cycle at a fair market price
Re-cycle: Repairing or repurposing garments to sell to other parents, until they are completely worn out or can be recycled in a meaningful way.

Their motto is simple: "Consume less, share better." Which immediately brings to my mind the famous Vivienne Westwood quote "Buy less, choose well, make it last." Both are a call to action to change our habits, to combat the ethical and environmental impact of the fashion industry as we know it. And Mini-cycle makes that process simpler for consumers by creating a business model built around sustainability.



Buy Less
Currently, annual global clothing production has more than doubled in the last decade. We purchase more clothing and wear them for about half as long as we did fifteen years ago. Altogether, fashion has become faster, cheaper, and more easily available. We can now buy more clothing than ever because it's cheap, but because it's cheap it often doesn't last, which ultimately means we have to buy more (and produce more!) clothing to replace it. It's a vicious cycle, which results in 9.5 million tonnes of clothing being added to landfills each year, in North America alone.

We don't need more cheap clothes. We need fewer, better clothes. However, it may take a shift in thinking to get there.




Choose Well
Admittedly, when you are accustomed to the prices of fast fashion pieces, the cost of ethical, sustainable clothing can seem intimidating, especially to keep up with dressing quickly growing babies and children. Truly sustainable fashion is an investment, and it should be. It's an investment in our environment, it's an investment in the people who were paid fairly to make it, it's an investment in change. And it's an investment that makes you more conscious of what you are adding to your children's wardrobe.

Mini-Cycle's goal is to offer only the most sustainable, durable children's clothes on the market. This makes the task of choosing items well a lot simpler for parents when they are already so thoughtfully selected. And because Mini-Cycle also offers secondhand items at reduced prices, sustainable fashion becomes more affordable.

Personally, I have found that when I make an initial investment on high-quality pieces, it has meant longer wear (I also size up!) - and the items still have resale value, or the items are still in good enough condition that they can be passed on to a friend when we no longer have a need for them. To stretch our smaller wardrobe (and budget) to its maximum potential, I choose mostly neutral colours, with a few pops of colour, for more versatility in pairing with other items.




Make It Last
When we thoughtfully invest in fewer and better quality items, we are more likely to take the time and make the effort to better care for them. Taking the proper measures to care for our clothes ensure they will last longer, whether for our use or to be passed on to someone else.

The environmental impact of the fashion industry is so significant, that it could be reduced by 20-30% simply by re-wearing our clothing an extra 6-9 months more than the average. Of all the 9.5 million tonnes of clothing that end up in landfills in North America each year, 95% of it could be reused or recycled. Mini-Cycle's objective is to maximize the use of each article of clothing in its lifetime, to delay ending up in a landfill for as long as possible, which is why they guarantee to buy back all clothing purchased from them.

"Our goal is that each garment is worn and enjoyed by up to six different children in an effort to reduce, reuse and recycle. An item nearing the end of its life cycle can be refurbished, repurposed and/or donated to pass on its memories and continue its journey. Each piece will tell a story about our impact on the planet in an attempt to educate the world and change consumer behaviour."

By carefully choosing sustainably made items, caring for them and repurposing them again and again in their lifetime, we can start to change the impact of fashion on our environment. Of course, there are still challenges, even when striving for a zero waste, sustainable model for fashion - such as C02 emissions from shipping items, waste produced by suppliers, and transparency of production practices from brands. But as far as concepts go, Mini-Cycle is an inspirational model for what the future of sustainable fashion could look like, hopefully helping to change a few consumer hearts and habits along the way.




Sustainable To the Very End
I just wanted to add one more thought. On the Mini-Cycle website, they share a quote by the sustainability advocate and consumerism critic Annie Leonard that says "There is no such thing as "away." When we throw something away, it must go somewhere." It's important that we look at the bigger picture when it comes to fashion - not only considering how the garment was made, but what happens after - after it's beyond use. Will it sit in a landfill for hundreds of years, releasing toxins into the earth?

Even high-quality clothing made from the most sustainable and durable textiles will eventually break down. Passed on from owner to owner, mended, repurposed, mended again, they will eventually reach a point where they are no longer of use for anything or anyone. For that reason, it's important to not only look for quality and durability, but also look for natural materials like linen, hemp, wool, cotton, silk. While each material can all have varying environmental impacts depending on production, when they eventually wear down (hopefully after being used and loved for a long time), the natural materials can at least be lovingly returned to the earth without harming it.

Featured Garments from Mini-Cycle:
- Lou Shell Top - Striped (Pre-Cycle item)
- Camille Flutter Short - Striped (Pre-Cycle item)
- Jacadi Paris White Collared Shirt (Re-cycle item)
- En-Fant Floral Onesie (Re-cycle item)





This post is in partnership with Mini-Cycle. This is not a sponsored post, though I was gifted Pre-Cycle and Re-Cycled garments to test out. All thoughts, feelings, opinions, and run-on sentences expressed here are my own.