The Conscious Closet

From journalist, fashionista, and clothing resale expert Elizabeth L. Cline, “the Michael Pollan of fashion,”* comes the definitive guide to building an ethical, sustainable wardrobe you'll love. Clothing is one of the most personal expressions of who we are. In her landmark investigation Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, Elizabeth L. Cline first revealed fast fashion’s hidden toll on the environment, garment workers, and even our own satisfaction with our clothes. The Conscious Closet shows exactly what we can do about it. Whether your goal is to build an effortless capsule wardrobe, keep up with trends without harming the environment, buy better quality, seek out ethical brands, or all of the above, The Conscious Closet is packed with the vital tools you need. Elizabeth delves into fresh research on fashion’s impacts and shows how we can leverage our everyday fashion choices to change the world through style. Inspired by her own revelatory journey getting off the fast-fashion treadmill, Elizabeth shares exactly how to build a more ethical wardrobe, starting with a mindful closet clean-out and donating, swapping, or selling the clothes you don't love to make way for the closet of your dreams. The Conscious Closet is not just a style guide. It is a call to action to transform one of the most polluting industries on earth—fashion—into a force for good. Readers will learn where our clothes are made and how they’re made, before connecting to a global and impassioned community of stylish fashion revolutionaries. In The Conscious Closet, Elizabeth shows us how we can start to truly love and understand our clothes again—without sacrificing the environment, our morals, or our style in the process. *Michelle Goldberg, Newsweek/The Daily Beast

A stylish guide to environment-friendly ways of buying, wearing, caring for, and decluttering your wardrobe, illustrated with case studies and tips from eco-fashion pioneers across the world As part of a growing global awareness of the importance of eco-conscious living, both for the planet and as a means of promoting fair labor practices, more people than ever before are seeking to dress in an environmentally friendly way. On a broader scale, initiatives to promote a more sustainable approach to fashion have made headlines and grown like never before, from the release of the high-profile documentary The True Cost to the launch of the worldwide “Fashion Revolution” campaign. This timely book is organized into four chapters—Buy, Wear, Care, and Dispose—each containing a short introduction with essential information followed by practical tips and illustrated case studies to help you make the first step toward a more sustainable wardrobe. A detailed reference section recommends not only the best ethical fashion labels and collections but also eco-friendly fabrics, standards, and certifications; cleaning methods; renting, swapping, and recycling initiatives; and much more.

“Overdressed does for T-shirts and leggings what Fast Food Nation did for burgers and fries.” —Katha Pollitt Cheap fashion has fundamentally changed the way most Americans dress. Stores ranging from discounters like Target to traditional chains like JCPenny now offer the newest trends at unprecedentedly low prices. And we have little reason to keep wearing and repairing the clothes we already own when styles change so fast and it’s cheaper to just buy more. Cline sets out to uncover the true nature of the cheap fashion juggernaut. What are we doing with all these cheap clothes? And more important, what are they doing to us, our society, our environment, and our economic well-being?

“An excellent idea for a book. . . . Next time I spend more than $40 on an article of clothing, I’ll run it by Linett first.” —The New York Times Book Review In a culture where trends are born and die every minute, maintaining style and effortlessness at every age requires that little extra something—the cool factor. Being “cool” isn’t about chasing trends or defying age but about following a few key guidelines. Yes, the cool factor is a skill that can be learned! In this photo-packed guide, Andrea Linett, a famed personal stylist and founding creative director of Lucky magazine, offers easy-to-implement, actionable tips that will change the way women dress. The tips are modeled by real-life style icons like Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth and Christene Barberich, founder of Refinery29, as Andrea highlights the ingenious ways in which they skillfully pile on layers, or dress up denim for work or a party. The book is organized into chapters that include wardrobe classics, denim, leather, suits, dressing up, and accessories, and features style hacks that turn an outfit into a masterpiece (choosing shoes that instantly slim you, combining tough and feminine pieces, and accessorizing a day-to-night look). Packed with useful lists and examples, this guide is the would-be stylish woman’s best friend.

An investigation into the damage wrought by the colossal clothing industry--and the grassroots, high-tech, international movement fighting to reform it from a bestselling journalist who has traveled the globe to discover the visionary designers and companies who are propelling the industry toward that more positive future.ture.

Is your closet jam-packed and yet you have absolutely nothing to wear? Can you describe your personal style in one sentence? If someone grabbed a random piece from your closet right now, how likely is it that it would be something you love and wear regularly? With so many style and shopping options, it can be difficult to create a streamlined closet of pieces that can be worn easily and confidently. In The Curated Closet, style writer Anuschka Rees presents a fascinatingly strategic approach to identifying, refining, and expressing personal style and building the ideal wardrobe to match it, with style and shopping strategies that women can use every day. Using The Curated Closet method, you’ll learn to: • Shop smarter and more selectively • Make the most of your budget • Master outfit formulas and color palettes • Tweak your wardrobe for work • Assess garment fit and quality like a pro • Curate a closet of fewer, better pieces Including useful infographics, charts, and activities, as well as beautiful fashion photography, The Curated Closet is the ultimate practical guide to authentic and unique style.

A COOKBOOK FOR YOUR CLOSET Personal style expert Jessica Quirk approaches getting dressed just as you would plan the perfect meal: With a smartly stocked pantry and a few gorgeous “spotlight ingredients,” inspiration comes easily. In What I Wore, named after her enormously popular blog, Jessica shares recipes for creating a stellar wardrobe to get you through spring, summer, fall, and winter. From delicates (bras, slips, lingerie) to the basics every woman should have (black pants, white shirts, knee-high leather boots) to the dramatic touches that set just the right tone (scarves, jewelry, handbags), she shows you how to take your look from ordinary to outstanding without breaking the bank. Inside you’ll discover how to • remix the clothing you already have for dozens of fresh, pulled-together looks • become a smarter shopper and always get the most bang for your buck • create wow-worthy ensembles for special occasions, weekends, and the office • supplement basics and investment pieces with fun and inexpensive accessories Plus you’ll learn tailoring tricks, handy hints, and packing tips to ensure that you always leave the house looking your best. Loaded with hundreds of vibrant, original illustrations and unique suggestions for combining colors, patterns, and textures, What I Wore will help you feel stylish and confident, each and every day.

Open the door to harmonious, powerful, and positive dressing with a guide that’s like The Secret—for your wardrobe. In this groundbreaking how-to book, style expert George Brescia shows you how to transform yourself from the inside out. More than a style guide, this revolutionary book by a seasoned stylist teaches a method of conscious dressing that begins with a powerful internal change. Instead of just grabbing for whatever’s on hand, you’ll learn to set your goals for the day, determining how you want to be perceived, and then dress in a way that helps manifest those intentions. Change Your Clothes, Change Your Life reveals the true power your clothing has to affect your life, showing how this second skin impacts your job prospects, your romantic life, your income, and even your deepest sense of self. Translating his styling methods into a philosophy anyone can apply on her own, Brescia also delivers tips and tricks of the trade to help convert even the most hapless dresser into a happy and educated shopper. Because the goal is to have you not only looking great, but feeling more confident, too. From major closet overhauls to a whole new philosophy on color, this is a comprehensive manual for anyone who’s ever looked at her closet in despair. Accessible, direct, honest, and thought-provoking, Change Your Clothes, Change Your Life takes an eye-opening look at the intersection between our clothing and our emotions, hopes, and dreams, showing us how improving our external appearance can have life-changing effects on how we’re perceived by others—and more importantly, on how we perceive ourselves.

A literary and cultural history of the intimate space of the eighteenth-century closet—and how it fired the imaginations of Pepys, Sterne, Swift, and so many other writers Long before it was a hidden storage space or a metaphor for queer and trans shame, the closet was one of the most charged settings in English architecture. This private room provided seclusion for reading, writing, praying, dressing, and collecting—and for talking in select company. In their closets, kings and duchesses shared secrets with favorites, midwives and apothecaries dispensed remedies, and newly wealthy men and women expanded their social networks. In The Closet, Danielle Bobker presents a literary and cultural history of these sites of extrafamilial intimacy, revealing how, as they proliferated both in buildings and in books, closets also became powerful symbols of the unstable virtual intimacy of the first mass-medium of print. Focused on the connections between status-conscious—and often awkward—interpersonal dynamics and an increasingly inclusive social and media landscape, The Closet examines dozens of historical and fictional encounters taking place in the various iterations of this room: courtly closets, bathing closets, prayer closets, privies, and the "moving closet" of the coach, among many others. In the process, the book conjures the intimate lives of well-known figures such as Samuel Pepys and Laurence Sterne, as well as less familiar ones such as Miss Hobart, a maid of honor at the Restoration court, and Lady Anne Acheson, Swift's patroness. Turning finally to queer theory, The Closet discovers uncanny echoes of the eighteenth-century language of the closet in twenty-first-century coming-out narratives. Featuring more than thirty illustrations, The Closet offers a richly detailed and compelling account of an eighteenth-century setting and symbol of intimacy that continues to resonate today.

An expose on the fashion industry written by the Observer's 'Ethical Living' columnist, examining the inhumane and environmentally devastating story behind the clothes we so casually buy and wear.