#CheapNChicChallenge: Join Me In The Second-Hand Fashion Challenge

Hello Everyone!

As some of you will have noticed I have been harping on about 'The Second-Hand Fashion Challenge' on my various social outlets! For those of you who wish to find out more please do read on...

Basically I've been reading up a whole lot on fast-fashion, vintage fashion, second-hand, everything under the 'eco-fashion umbrella' and I find it pretty amazing/shocking if I'm honest with you...

Without going into the whole she-bang about the devastating results of 'fast-fashion' I have found some pretty thought provoking facts:

• £140 million worth of clothes go into landfill each year in the UK alone
• Only 20% of clothing is made in Britain
• An average spend per person on clothes per year is £780 
• Only 1/8th of all unwanted clothing & textiles is donated to charity whilst the other 7/8ths is sent to landfill! Source

I am becoming an eco-babe on a mission, now I'm not one to preach but I am one to get people involved!
I feel like bloggers especially fashion bloggers have extra pressure to buy into the trends and constantly update our wardrobes. Regular hauls and lookbooks are flooding the blogosphere and many of us are struggling with wardrobes that are bursting at the seams and bank balances that are dwindling.

Join me for a challenge

Lets do a little experiment for just one month, in which we don't buy ANYTHING new for our wardrobes. Let's call it a wardrobe rework or a fashion cleanse. Whatever we class it as I just want to have a shift in perception about what fashion really means to you. If after a month you have had literally no connection with the challenge then hey-it's only 4 weeks out of your life and you can continue on your fashion path. What I'm really hoping is that the challenge will be fun, inspiring, thrifty and will change peoples opinions on second-hand fashion and trends in general.

The Rules

• You can only buy from charity shops/flea markets/car boots
• eBay is allowed but only for second-hand/vintage goods (no cheeky buy-it-nows!)
• If you feel like you REAAALLLY need something that's new, take a photo of it, pin it, write it down & then re-visit at the end of the challenge & see if it's still a must-have.

I am a fashion styling graduate & I've studied fashion, trends, promotion and photography plus I have been an avid charity shopper for the last 5 years. I'm not asking you all to wear kaftans made of hemp and vegan shoes but what I am asking is for you to look at your wardrobe through different eyes. Rework things, have a style shake-up, weed out the items that don't mean anything to you and find something that you really connect to as a garment. I love trends. I love looking at trends and putting my own spin on them. I'd much rather do that then wear a dress that Primark have put on the rail that epitomises the trend, yet hundreds of people will be wearing the same, poorly manufactured piece for one season until the next big thing happens.

Throughout the month I have created little prompts and mini challenges for you to take part in. I've created the #CheapNChicChallenge hash tag so we can all support each other through different social media. It also provides a fresh feature on the blogs and people can follow your journey too.

The challenge will start on September 1st 2014 so put it in your diary & spread the word. The more the merrier :)

Feel free to use the artwork on your blog/Instagram/Facebook any social media you like & link back to this post so others can join in too!

I can't wait for this to start! If you have any questions you can send me an e-mail or tweet me @MyNameIsRachey

Thanks for reading :)

Rachelle xxx