Is It Possible To Be A Sustainable Fashion Blogger?

I started my blog in 2012 because I wanted free clothes. I’m not even joking. I attended a business of fashion camp in 2012 heard two bloggers speak about how they got free clothes. I started my blog a month later so I could do just that. Since I started blogging I’ve gotten lots of free clothes, beauty products, and home goods. Though I started my blog to get free clothing, the purpose of my blog has never been to make money. My blog is both a creative outlet and a platform that I can use to make a difference. Especially since my transition from fast fashion blogger to sustainable fashion blogger, I have loved sharing the ins and outs of my “progress, not perfection” approach to conscious living. I still have this blog because I love it, not because I want to make money.

That being said, the cost of running a not-totally-amateur blog definitely adds up.

I pay for a domain. I pay to have my site hosted. The professional blog theme I use wasn’t free. And yeah – as a style blogger I’ve purchased some clothes. It ain’t cheap to run a blog — even if it’s just for fun. This is why many bloggers turn to affiliate marketing and sponsored content. Again, making money has never been a priority for me. But even part-time keeping up a blog with weekly blog posts and daily social media posts takes a lot of effort. I’ve invested in tripods and camera remotes so that I can take my own photos instead of hiring a photographer. I pay for photo and video editing software. It takes me hours to research topics to create educational and valuable content. I put way more time, effort, and money into this blog than I’d like to admit.

It’s nice to be rewarded with a little something for the hard work I put into my blog, even if it’s just free clothes.

I joined an affiliate network and began seriously trying to work with brands one year before my sustainability awakening. It was the first time I realized I could monetize my blog – even as a micro-influencer and I loved it. In that first year it felt like I got offers for free clothes every single day. I accepted anything that I even remotely liked. It wouldn’t matter if I’d used the product before, if the brand had good reviews, or if I would use the product again in the future. I wanted free stuff, it was offered to me, and I took it. I fell into the typical blogger “it’s free, so why not?” mentality and I fell hard.

When companies began offering to pay for posts it became a whole new addiction. $40 for an instagram post? Why not. When my affiliate links began taking off it was addicting. I was constantly checking my statistics to see which products were most popular and how many clicks I got everyday. From the quickest glance at my analytics it was clear that cheaper products were the most popular. So I optimized my blog posts to maximize my affiliate income. I linked to low-cost (fast fashion) alternatives to my clothes and always mentioned when an item was on sale.

All of this changed when I committed to becoming a conscious consumer and promoting more sustainable purchasing habits on my blog. I began turning down free items from companies I would have loved to work with before I solidified my values. I made a conscious effort to remove fast fashion affiliate links from my old blog posts. When people asked where I got the skirt in these photos I told them “It’s from Zara but I got it secondhand”. I’d tell them to look on Poshmark when I could have easily linked to the skirt on Zara’s website. I was happily surprised to see this type of content was resonating way more with people. Soon my Instagram DM’s were flooded with photos of reusable straws purchased at local coffee shops and amazing thrift finds. I was directly inspiring people to make real sustainable changes to the way they lived and shopped, but I was no longer seeing the “rewards” of my labor like I did before. I was putting more work into my blog and was getting a significantly lower monetary reward for content that required a higher level of expertise.

Eco/ethical style blogging is an interesting space to be in.

My dad always says “sustainable fashion is an oxymoron”. He means that so much of the fashion industry is the exact opposite of what sustainability is all about. And layering fashion blogging on top of that — an industry that is synonymous with pushing sales, promoting products, and encouraging consumerism — makes it even more complex.

On the one hand, I’m here to inspire you all to make better purchasing decisions. Some people want to be able to purchase things right from the swipe up feature on Instagram or consume directly through a blog post link. I do my best to make sure you have what you need to make the most informed purchase decision possible. On the other hand, I know that the best thing you can do is simply stop buying things. I don’t want my content to constantly be promoting consumerism – even if it is a more conscious form of consumerism.

There isn’t necessarily an answer to these conundrums, but I know one thing for sure: my blog will continue to evolve as the eco/ethical fashion industry and fashion blogging in general continue to evolve as well. To quote my about page: I am by no means a perfect conscious consumer, and perfection is by no means my goal. My goal is to be just that: a conscious consumer – someone who thinks deeply about her purchasing decisions, sees her consumer dollars as a vote, and chooses to use her voice when she sees a need for change.

The same goes for my blog. This will by no means be a “perfect sustainable fashion blog” because that just doesn’t exist. I will continue to use affiliate links for products I believe in and will share sponsored posts every now and then. But money will never rule everything about my blog. The purpose of ACTEEVISM is to equip you with the knowledge and inspiration you need to become a more conscious consumer. Whether that means inspiring you to thrift more, buy a new sustainable product, or shift your consumer mindset.

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