Is it Time to bring Back the Tailor?
A small mindset shift could EMPOWER you to create the wardrobe of your dreams, save you money AND reboot local industry.
In 2022 — about a year post Covid — something shifted. Not a full-blown revolution, but a noticeable pause. Many of us became more ethically and environmentally conscious, and eco-brands started getting real attention.
Then life sped up again. Budgets tightened. Convenience won. And fast fashion slid back into the driver’s seat like it never left (because, let’s be honest, it didn’t).
The uncomfortable truth is this: when the system is built for cheap, quick and constant newness, most of us end up buying more than we mean to…and a lot of it ends up as waste.
In the UK, WRAP reports that for post-consumer textiles in the residual waste stream, 84% is incinerated with energy recovery and 11% goes to landfill. So no — it’s not all landfill. But it is still, overwhelmingly, disposal. Burned or buried… just with different branding.
So what does this have to do with tailoring?
If we want to buy less and wear more, we need to stop treating clothes like they’re disposable — and start building a wardrobe that actually works for us (our bodies, our lifestyles, our real days).
Because most of us aren’t wearing “our wardrobe”, are we???
We’re wearing the same reliable few pieces on rotation. That 80/20 stat gets quoted for a reason: we tend to wear about 20% of our wardrobe 80% of the time. The rest isn’t “bad”… it’s just not quite right.
There are in truth a few reasons for that — the wrong style personality, colouring, or fabrics can all play a part knowing whatt you need personally can reduce that waist.
But even still, the high street is designed to make up buy and it rarely shows up with exactly what real women NEED.
But there’s also the bigger picture…
…the high street is designed to fuel fast fashion and a constant “buy-buy-buy” mindset. And if we genuinely want to break that cycle, build a wardrobe we love, and positively impact the environment, we need to use the high street to our advantage — not the other way around.
When mass production arrived, sizing got standardised, and we all quietly accepted the idea that our bodies were the problem if something didn’t fit!
The fit problem isn’t you — it’s the system
Fast fashion relies on speed and volume. That means:
Patterns are simplified
Fabrics are chosen for price and production ease
Fit is designed to be “good enough” on a theoretical average body
And when something is only nearly right for us , it doesn’t get worn. It sits in the wardrobe, silently judging you, until it’s donated (or binned) with the tags still on.
