When building your sustainable wardrobe, you’ll want to find items that are made to last you through the seasons and have mileage in the wardrobe.
In today’s diverse fashion world, where there are multiple designs even for similar style garments, that is sometimes a difficult choice to make. This makes it even more important to understand your own body shape, sizing and fit when making a purchasing decision, not only to ensure that what you buy will be worn, but also to achieve a confident and comfortable look. Having a good understanding of your size and fit also saves you time and energy in dealing with returns, and is generally better for the environment - it is not uncommon to find a 30-40% return rate in online fashion shopping. This often leads to excessive use of packaging and a significant carbon footprint for managing multiple deliveries and returns.
Luckily, many sustainable fashion brands are already making an effort to help you achieve a more enjoyable online shopping experience, by helping you choose items that will give a better fit for your size and body type, helping you avoid sizing guesswork and to have to deal with the hassle of returns. From providing a better presented sizing chart to a more friendly body shape fitting approach, there are many sustainable fashion brands out there who help you shop more mindfully based on your own body type, fit and sizing preferences, so you can avoid compromising on less-than-ideal choices.
Searching for the right sizing and fit !
As more of us resort to online shopping, it has become even more important that we have access to fit and sizing information, given the inability to try things on before we make a purchasing decision. This information is usually made available to us throughout the online journey, from the first glance of an item when you click on a specific product page, with pictures showing how the garments would look on particular models, to the provision of sizing guides for a specific brand or individual items. There are also brands that give a step-by-step guide to taking your own body measurements - if you are interested, Curobe has also produced a short video guide on this. Some even save you the effort of trying to find a measuring tape, by giving a printable version that’s downloadable online!
Sustainable fashion brands that cater for fit
It might take some time and research to identify your own body shape to understand what best suits your body type. However, even when you don’t have that information, you will generally have a reference based on your own preferences and all your prior shopping experiences! Bearing this in mind, there are also a number of sustainable fashion brands that are already finding different ways to help women choose better, based on their fit and sizing.
Seasalt Cornwall’s “shop by fit” option provides a convenient way to view products by categories specifically tailored to your body type, be it “tall, petite, maternity or plus sizes up to size 28”. Law Design Studio and Vildnis provide more specificity, by clearly indicating whether items tend to run smaller or larger to regular sizes and the model height and size, which allows a more informed choice to gauge fit on the body.
With the drive for greater body positivity some brands have also started to design more inclusively, catering for a greater range of different races, genders, abilities and also body types. Linenbee and Dariadeh are examples of brands that are offering an extremely diverse range of sizing for different bodies, with styles ranging from XXS to 4XL. Such brands help avoid the disappointment of not finding that fit for your favorite style, or the feeling of sitting between sizes, with a much bigger range to choose from.
Brands like Law Design Studio design in the familiar oversized or relaxed fit style, which is another way to design for inclusivity. By using clever design, a particular style can be made to suit a variety of different body types, so that the style looks good on the body by draping or fitting in different ways. This makes one single product suitable for more different body types.
Another interesting approach that some sustainable fashion brands take, is to be flexible about sizing. Brands like Deploy London and Jungle Folk accept direct calls or emails from customers to discuss particular sizing adjustments for their garments. UK brand Veryan Studio offers an easy way for customers to contact their in-house team via the “Tailor Made’’ section of their site, which allows direct messages to customise particular styles to “tailor make the perfect piece for you”. Other brands like Fanfarelabel offers a part of their collection that departs from the supply driven model, with “made to order” styles that are produced to demand, and which can be adjusted to size.
Helping you choose a good fitting sustainable wardrobe!
It is great to see so many sustainable brands working hard to help us all choose and buy better for our different body shapes and sizes. At Curobe, we hope to make it even easier for you to discover and access a range of sustainable fashion brands, with garment recommendations that are tailored to your body shape and fit. We work with all our brand partners to integrate their sizing parameters into our curation journey, offering you a convenient way to discover conscious fashion and to find your perfect fitting sustainable wardrobe.
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