This year, Bear Park is committed to increasing its efforts in sustainability and helping our community thrive. We recently teamed up with a fantastic organisation called Little Outfitters to help us understand our impact from sustainable fashion.
“People are increasingly mindful of their impact on the planet and how sustainable their lives are. Little Outfitters exists to provide parents with an online marketplace to buy & sell children’s outgrown clothing and accessories” Lucy Kirkwood, founder of Little Outfitters
The ease of buying more, facilitated by fast fashion and sites offering free shipping / returns / at bargain prices, means the average consumer now purchases 60% more clothing than 15 years ago. Moreover, consumers kept that clothing for only half as long as they used to, according to a recent Mckinsey report on the State of Fashion 2019*.
Little Outfitters is attempting to reshape this cycle of consumption.
The Auckland-based platform encourages parents to sell their pre-loved children’s clothing and, in so doing, enables other parents a lower-cost, more environmentally friendly alternative to buying new.
“We believe it’s about not adding more materials to the world but consciously cycling better ones.”
We’re all aware of the environmental cost of fashion, especially with children’s clothing which is worn for a fraction of time before they’ve outgrown them. Recycling rather than discarding gives a second, third or even fourth chance for an item that might otherwise end up in a landfill.
From Kenzo to Nature Baby, popular children’s brands for 0-12 years can be bought, sold, and given multiple lifetimes which reduces fashion waste to landfill and strengthens the circularity of the childrenswear industry. This not only enables accessibility to coveted labels, but also to higher-quality microfashion.
According to an article by the Business Insider, the fashion industry is responsible for emitting more carbon than international flights and maritime shipping combined. Choosing to buy secondhand clothing and baby gear is one way in which we can individually reduce our carbon footprint.
As Claire Bergkamp, head of Stella McCartney sustainability and innovation says, “don’t worry about being perfect, just start”.
We are excited to be supporting Little Outfitters on their journey and hope to engage more community projects in support of sustainability for 2020.
If you would like to find out more about Little Outfitters and try out the platform for sustainable fashion Follow – @littleoutfittersnz or visit their website – littleoutfitters.nz
*Business of Fashion and McKinsey & Company (2019). The State of Fashion 2019 (Page 39). Retrieved from https://cdn.businessoffashion.com/reports/The_State_of_Fashion_2019.pdf
