Seamly.co - Sustainable Fashion, Made in the USA!

On Wednesday, I came home to a parcel from Seamly.co! Read about them and their mission here.

I ordered two items (using a discount I received for participating in their Versalette Challenge), the "So High" leggings in Deep Plum and the Midsummer Midi in Wave Blue. Here they are right out of the parcel, complete with cute brown-paper labels and colorful twine!

These leggings are so high quality, and such a beautiful color! On the site it says these are "active-wear fabric paired with a super high waist", made of perforated lycra deadstock fabric. They are SO soft and smooth, they feel great against your skin and are super flattering, especially for leggings. I think these would be great for doing yoga as well as for everyday wear - the fabric makes them breathable and cool. I wore them the day after they arrived, even though it was perhaps a little chilly to wear anything with perforated fabric (as Winter is still on the way out here in NZ!) - but I just couldn't wait!

 I mentioned in an earlier post that their items are slightly more expensive than what you'd find in a trendy chain store, but actually, even stores like American Eagle and Aeropostale in America, or Glassons and Jeanswest in NZ, have similar or higher prices than Seamly.co. The quality of their clothes doesn't match up though; at Seamly they make and design their goods individually (even letting people vote on their upcoming designs!), meaning each piece is well thought out and very high quality, whereas at chain stores the clothing is more mass-produced and geared towards fast fashion trends. AND, when you take into account the versatile options, Seamly becomes even more attractive value for money. For example, they are currently making some dresses that you can wear either long or short. As in, maxi-long and above-the-knee short. That's like having two totally different dresses! Those ones are retailing for $55-60 USD, so if you divide that by two you have around $30 for each dress option that your new dress will give you. Now think about options like the Versalette or the 5-way maxi dress, and for the styling options you're getting you've actually got quite amazing bargains in terms of price, and that's awesome.

Finally, what I really really love about Seamly is that they are real. They're not using the fact that they are sustainable fashion as a draw-card to drive up the price. Seamly is marketable to real girls with real budgets who can't afford designer clothing. I looked up some eco-fashion brands in NZ, and came up with Trelise Cooper, Kowtow, and Untouched World, places where a tshirt costs $100-155 NZD ($100 NZ is currently $78 US). That's crazy! I would love to buy only sustainable fashion, but with prices like that I simply can't afford to. Seamly.co makes sustainable fashion realistic and affordable (even with international shipping, which the lovely Kristin was very helpful with arranging especially for me!).

Sustainable fashion shouldn't be a concept for designer clothing brands to use as "good for the earth" marketing to make customers pay more. Even though it can be true that saving the earth makes it worth paying more for something, it's just impractical for reaching the majority of the population and allowing real people to afford sustainable fashion - which is the only way a company will be able to make a major change in the world. Keep up the good work, Seamly.co!

Even though I am striving to become more minimalist in life (and especially in my wardrobe), I will definitely keep up to date with what's happening at Seamly.co and check out their stuff whenever I need to replace something, so I can do it the earth-friendly way! Keep up to date with what they're up to by subscribing to their blog and newsletter, written by Kristin!

*I was in no way sponsored to write this post, all excitement and opinions about Seamly.co are completely genuine.