Middle School Essay

Middle school were the days that I started to gain an interest in picking out my own clothes when shopping with my mom. Like anyone else who enjoys fashion, the self-expression and freedom to put whatever you want on your body are the best parts. A whole outfit is able to tell a story of what you are doing that day, who you are, and even who you want to be.

There are endless possibilities when it comes to clothing. That’s why the clothing industry is a very fast pace environment, certain items popularity come in and out. But once a style or piece becomes the “look” of the season, believe me, everyone tries to hop on that bandwagon. Then the next hot trend comes along and everyone forgets about it. Ever since I began to shop at fast fashion

And for my middle school self, to only think about this for a second, was insane! It definitely deserved more attention from me. Especially, because my method of disposing the garments that I don’t want was to either donate them to thrift stores or to send them along with relatives who are going to Cambodia in order to distribute to the less fortunates. However, there are more to it, that never once crossed the mind of my younger self and others. The act of disposing clothes may seem like magic as you don’t have to worry about it once they’re off your hands, but the life of an article of clothing is more

I remembered not agreeing with my mom and thinking that clothing pieces cannot last a lifetime, but I began to see the alternatives. It also helps that the new craze for awhile has been finding ways to style vintage items, deriving inspiration from other decades, and by not being trendy is trendy. For instance, in the article “Waste Couture: Environmental Impact of the Clothing Industry,” an increasingly popular outlet is consignment and thrift shops, where sales are growing at a pace of 5% per year, according to the National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops (Claudio). Furthermore, I’ve noticed that in the YouTube community hauls are not as prominent nowadays as they used to be and thrift hauls are more widely popular. I think it’s because others began to educate themselves as well, like I did, about the problems of the fashion industry. In my middle school and high school years I used to shop every week and at least add one item to my collection of clothes weekly. Now I reduced my shopping habits to monthly at the most. I used to pride myself with how much clothes I had, but now all I want to do is to keep everything at a minimum. By experiencing the luxury of not knowing the consequences of something so simple like purchasing clothes, makes me wonder about other aspects of life that I don’t know much