Slow Fashion: The Journey to Changing My Habits

“Our own understanding of slow living has to do, quite simply, with making conscious choices about how we live our lives. It’s about paying attention to how we spend our time, money and resources, and taking a step back from the industrialized systems that have come to provide our daily needs. It’s also about observing our own consumer habits, where and how they intersect with quality of life and perpetuate an unsustainable paradigm.”

-Mary Kingsley, Guide to Slow Living

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My journey to slow living began 13 years ago. I was sitting in one person tent, pitched in a village of Mozambique. We were miles from any town and even though I was unfamiliar with the term “sustainable living” I was experiencing it first hand.

I was five months along on an 11 month mission trip around the globe. I had been in and out of cities and countries, but no place so remote as this. And through all the cultural differences I felt an unfamiliar calm in my heart.

It was there in my little tent where I sat humming the lyrics “The Beauty of Simplicity”, and penning the words into my journal. As a wrote, I could picture a small cottage, a humble garden, a piano (which I do not yet play, but desperately want to learn), and land around me on all sides. This picture was left to the pages of my journal for many years. But the heart never forgets, and soon enough it comes back around.

A couple months later, I was preparing to leave Africa and board a plane to Thailand. Our team would be staying in Bangkok and working alongside Nightlight International: a nonprofit organization offering holistic intervention and restoration for women, families, and communities affected by the global sex industry.

I had never heard of human trafficking or the sex industry. I had never stepped foot into a bar (I had only just turned 21 on the mission field). I expressed these truths to a friend, overwhelmed and oblivious to what was coming. She handed me the book Not for Sale to read through before we boarded our flight, and in a state of absolute terror, I read the book cover to cover and cried myself to sleep.

My worst fears were realized. I would have done ANYTHING to run away to that peaceful little cottage at that very moment. Instead, my senses were over stimulated with the loud colors, pounding music and aggressive bouncers. My pride was completely abolished as I sat in a crowded bar where men and women (majority white westerners) went to purchase young women and even younger girls for sex, and I looked just like one of the crowd.

Our purpose in visiting the bars were to “buy” a girl out for a few hours, treat her to dinner and ice cream, and show her that she was loved and valued. There was joy in that to be sure. But watching them step back inside to be purchased again and again, was more than I could take.

I grew especially close to one girl during my time there, she spoke decent English and her young daughter shared a birthday with me. I’ll never forget her face, and I can’t stop the shedding of tears and aching heart when I think about her. It’s all so unfair to know some people are trapped while so many of us are free.

And there was another girl too, she was 13 years old. I wanted to take her away so badly, to restore her stolen childhood, and make everything right. She was the same age as my younger brother, JUST A CHILD. She was taken away on the arm of another man before I ever had a chance to give her even two hours of freedom. It hurts ever worse reliving these nightmares now, as mother to daughters of my own.

I can still feel the razor sharp pain in chest, lungs fighting for air, and a heart so broken I never ever thought it would heal. Sleepless nights sobbing, aching, crying, pleading, wishing that I could do just one little act that would change their lives, but feeling so so helpless.

Before I knew it we were flying away from Thailand and on to the next country, the next assignment, and in a matter of months, home.

After a season of trying fit myself back into modern America, I ventured into the world of entrepreneurial hustle. I soon learned I could not keep pace and I didn’t have the heart to carry on as everyone else did. In the moments to follow, the little tune was once again playing in my head, The Beauty of Simplicity, and I saw the picture of the little cottage, and the garden, and the piano, and the land. I saw a way of life that brought peace to my heart.

I set my mind to slow living. I learned how to enjoy the process of growing into this vision, even while the cottage still seemed so far off. I wanted to be ready for all that it had to offer me when I finally arrived. I’m still getting ready for that preverbal cottage, and dreaming of the day it is real.

After months (or years even) of practicing small changes and growing in my understanding of slow living and all the ways one choice connects to the next, I was finally ready to give myself over to hearing out the idea of “ethical fashion”. Face to face with facts coupled with experience, I found myself confronted with the question: Would I want either of those precious girls from Thailand to slave away in unethical working environments so that I could purchase my clothes at a “convenient for me” price that pays them a penny on the dollar. I put their faces, faces I had grown to care deeply for, faces that had changed my heart forever, yes, I put their faces behind the machines in the factories and imagined them in another version of slavery. And wouldn’t I do anything to set them free?

So I did something. I made the choice to change my consumer habits, no longer supporting (spending my money on) fast fashion and unethical practices. If I don’t condone slavery, how could I buy into it??

Looking back, it may have seemed like a maddening paradox, or just plain bad logistics—to go from the peaceful village of sustainable living, directly into a world that threatened every sense of the idea. But I can see now how necessary that process was. It would still be a long journey before I came to understand how these experiences would shape my world. And for a while I was bitter and confused as to how I could have seen and experienced so much only to come home and live a “normal” life. But nothing is wasted that wants not to be. I may not have made a direct impact on a global scale, but I gave my heart to two beautiful girls and in turn they gave me the strength and courage to be an advocate for others, even if only by my own actions—that in its self is more than enough.

It’s important to note, though I am deeply moved and persuaded into change by matter of the heart, I am also a VERY HUMBLED recipient of grace, and grace again. There have been times where I simply didn’t plan well, or a need came up suddenly and unexpectedly. Grace covers me, but I am acutely aware of what my purchases mean, and in turn, very intentional about learning from each experience. I’ve even come to realize in moments where I couldn't find what I wanted, how I wanted, that often what I thought was a “need” was really just a “culture comfort” in disguise. It has been a rather remarkable and even enjoyable “experiment” to uncover just how much is necessary and how much was just assumed to be.

While no other reason has held such a tremendous weight over my heart, there have been a number of other factors that have reinforced our desire to shop differently. In the book, Guide to Slow Living, Mary Kingsley offers some really thoughtful reflections and exercises for evaluating your relationship with clothing (and other topics). As well as a wealth of insight and information to help guide you in your own direction. I’m truly looking forward to sitting down with these prompts and seeing where they take me, how they challenge me, and how they may help to see just how deeply some roots are being established.

Thank you truly, for sharing in this journey with me. I know what it is to feel like we don’t have any other choice on how we can shop (hello, budget!). And I know what it is to hear a friend share an inspiring story, standing behind their "why” with all their heart and might, and to support them in it, but not yet ready to put yourself there. And I know what it is to feel a bit lonely on the road to trying to do better, not always feeling understood or supported. For the latter, I am deeply grateful for the community of women I have come to know through this online space, so many kindred hearts, and all the best when they are close by and become the dearest of friends.

It’s a journey, friends. We may all be in different places, but we are all here.

“We can do this, each and every one of us, in small ways, in seemingly minuscule decisions, in the example we set for those around us. We don’t have to be loud or preachy, or “holier than thou.” No single behavior is going to be right for everyone. We all got here together even if we came from a thousand different directions. The way out is with individual changes, but the ultimate paradigm-shifting changes will be collective.”

-Mary Kingsley, Guide to Simple Living

Candice HackettComment