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why I avoid wearing clothing with brands showing

Why I Avoid Wearing Clothing with Brands Showing

Posted on October 4, 2021July 6, 2023

I’ve made the switch to secondhand clothing a long time ago. This means that the habit of buying (almost) no new clothing is quite easy for me. I know where to look and what to look for when it comes to secondhand clothing. The next step was not buying any plastic clothes anymore and that’s going quite well too. Now that I got this base I want to take the next step: I want to stop being a billboard for (especially) unsustainable brands. Here’s why I avoid wearing clothing with brands showing.

Fit In

From a very young age people are aware of brands and their value. We know which brands are expensive and which ones are cheap even though the price for the production of Nikes or Primark shoes are the same. Because of this, brands divide people. If you can’t afford the newest shoes of a specific brand, you’re not cool. You don’t fit in and I think that’s wrong. You should not be excluded because you don’t buy that specific piece of clothing. Clothing brands should not divide us. They’re there to produce clothing for us, not an identity. 

Identity

Division is already bad enough. But clothing brands also make people form their identity through consumerism. This wat your identity is not formed by what you do, what you don’t, what you preach, what you learn, what you believe in or anything else: it’s about the clothes you wear. I personally don’t think that’s what we should aim for. I think people should be cool because of the way they behave. The things they do and enjoy doing. About who you are as a person in this world. We can spend our money so much better than by being a billboard for fashion brands and we can spend our time better than by browsing for the latest shoes and hating ourselves because we don’t have enough clothing. I think we can do better.

Sustainability

Also, this way you’ll never want enough. You’ll always want the newest Nikes, Adidas shoes or Levi’s pants. And that can never be sustainable. Sustainability is about slow fashion. We need to buy things that last long. Also, we need to buy from sustainable fashion brands. But that’s not a cool thing now. All the unsustainable brands are the cool brands that everybody wears. I rarely see people advertising sustainable brands by wearing those. And that’s also where my biggest problem comes in.

When you wear a specific brand, you are their free billboard. I currently have secondhand Vans. This is sustainable because I bought them secondhand. However, nobody can see that when I wear them. To the outside world I am just advertising Vans. This screams: ‘look at me! I am cool because I wear Vans’. That’s not what I want at all anymore. I will wear out all the shoes that I own right now (because throwing them away would be a waste), but I will try to avoid buying products with brands on them from now on. I am not a billboard. 

Utopia

Don’t get me wrong here. I do not want everybody to wear the same boring clothing. Personally, I am not against different types of models for clothing. I am not against colors, shapes or texts. I mean, I like fashion too. The only thing I don’t like is that brands are shown off on the outside of the clothing. You know, the big brands on sweaters, shirts, shoes, etc. Not showing off the brand maybe won’t solve all of the problems I listed above, but at least some of them.

In my utopia clothing is just clothing. The same as it is today, but without the brand itself on it. So still Nike Air Max, but just not with Nike on it. No Nike on shoes, no Levi’s on jeans, no Tommy Hilfiger on polo’s. Nothing. This way you can’t see which brand a specific shirt or hat is from. And then it’s not a status item anymore. Because that’s what we think brands give us right now, status. And in this utopia you can still have a good sense of fashion. You can still buy specific models of shirts or shoes. But nobody will know what brand it is. And very important too: in this ideal situation all clothing brands would be sustainable and ethical of course. But that’s another problem.

From now on I refuse to be a bill-board for brands. I will try to avoid wearing clothing with brands showing. Let’s see how that goes! 

Yours sincerely,
Romee

Follow my personal journey on Instagram.

3 thoughts on “Why I Avoid Wearing Clothing with Brands Showing”

  1. Pingback: Sustainable Hotspots in Amsterdam | When A Teen Goes Green
  2. Pingback: Secondhand Clothing Inspiration | When A Teen Goes Green
  3. Pingback: The last secondhand clothing inspiration of 2022 | When A Teen Goes Green

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ABOUT ME

 

when a teen goes green

Hi! My name is Romee Hoeksma and I am on a journey to an eco-positive life. An eco-positive lifestyle is a lifestyle in which I have a more positive than negative impact on the beautiful planet earth. On this blog you can follow my journey to a life with only positive impact. At this blog you can find all sorts of things, from tips to recipes to personal experiences, but most of all fun (I hope!). I write about how I want to change the world, but don’t look at it as if I’m judging you. If anything, I like responses from my dear readers the most, so don’t hesitate to contact me or respond to any of my posts!

Yours sincerely,
Romee

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Dit is hoe ik met de trein van Krásná Lípa (🇨🇿) naar Bratislava (🇸🇰) reisde. Dit was reisdag 3/6 van onze duurzame interrail reis. Ik ben vandaag 25 jaar geworden 🥳. Ik hoop heel hard dat dat betekent dat ik ongeveer op een kwart van mijn leven ben. En wat een verjaardag is dit! Ik mag het vieren in Kopenhagen met mijn favoriete persoon @casperchristiaanse , terwijl ik met de trein door Europa reis 🚃. Ik ben een gelukkig mens. Op naar de 50! Dit is hoe ik van Dresden (🇩🇪) naar Krásná Lípa (🇨🇿) reisde. Niet een bijster lange, maar wel een prachtige treinreis, omdat je door het nationaal park Boheems Zwitserland gaat. Dit was de tweede reisdag van onze interrail (2/6). We zijn op de helft van de interrail. Terwijl ik dit typ zijn we onderweg naar Warschau (8,5 uur vanaf Bratislava). Nog twee bestemmingen te ontdekken, maar wat hebben we nu al veel genoten. Elke dag goed en lang slapen, nieuw vegan eten proberen, bijzonder lang wandelen, spelletjes spelen, weinig schermtijd, genieten van de mooie uitzichten en zon: deze reis is genieten 💜. Dit is hoe ik met de trein van Amsterdam naar Dresden reisde 🚃. De interrail is officieel begonnen! (1/6) Vandaag verschijnt er geen artikel op mijn blog. En de komende twee weken hierna ook niet. Dat is voor het eerst, in de 7 jaar dat ik schrijf. Een heel leuk onderdeel van duurzaam leven is tweedehands kleding. Hier zijn 4 tweedehands outfits die ik droeg in augustus 2023 🌞. Je zag het al in de reel van vorige week: ik ben op vakantie geweest naar Gent, in België. Het was een ontzettende aanrader, en daarom verscheen er vandaag een artikel op mijn blog over de leukste en duurzaamste hotspots in Gent 🌆. Check it out via de link in mijn bio Gent, wat was je prachtig 🌆. Dit is absolute een duurzame vakantietip (oh, maar wees niet zo naïef als ik en ga lekker met de trein 🚃). Binnenkort is op Youtube de gehele vakantievlog te bekijken.

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