Welcome to And I've Been Saying That
The newsletter I'm trying to convince myself will be different than that Wordpress blog I tried to do in college (that has been burned from my memory until now)
I’ve always left jackets unbuttoned;
all my shit flies open in the wind. Growing up, my mom would scold me for not having my coat zipped in the dead of winter. But you can’t see my outfit!!! I would whine. Let the flu commence if it’s so keen to get me! Ten years later and I still have my collared button-ups loose over a simple tank, and wool overcoats with belts that hang almost to the floor behind me… paired with an unstructured leather hobo bag that happily gets thrown and mucked about in every coffee shop, co-working space and flat I’ve lived in.
I love nice things, expensive things, things that feel luxurious and things that look like something a woman of high status would put on and look even more powerful. I love shopping, romanticizing the places I’ll go with a dress, who I’ll be with a crisp blazer. I ogle at red carpets, save style ideas on a massive Pinterest board (as well as screenshots in my camera roll), and applaud *almost* everything that comes off the Jacquemus runway. And dammit, that’s not a crime! I’m not here to point fingers at anyone who feels the same way.
In recent years, I’ve studied how clothes are made and what makes a garment “nice”, and a shift in my mindset has slowly rolled out. I’ve fallen in love with secondhand and vintage items for their longer-lasting material quality, rather than the quantity of garments I can buy from these shops without going over budget. I’ve experimented with fashion rental for events and weddings, and shifted from a career pathway in diplomacy to one in circular fashion. The time I used to scroll fast fashion sites is now channeled towards scouring Depop, writing, and new hobbies (TikTok is never too far away either).
All this to say, I can no longer look at an item of clothing without questioning everything that was put into the final product that stands before me. Why did the designer choose this material? Why is it sourced from that factory which may or may not notoriously exploit laborers? Do the countries they work with have environmental and labor protection regulations? Is this an item that is trendy right now, or will it last me through multiple seasons and retain its quality and timelessness? What led them to decide on the price, and what is the percentage breakdown of earnings per product? Do I dare ask if a billionaire heads this brand… (major side eye).
It’s an exhaustive list that desperately needs attention.
Girl, who is this even for?
Ideally, I’d like to use this to target Gen Z and millennial-adjacent people who are trying to figure out how to use their spending power in a way that doesn’t feel like they’re blowing up the planet. You may know industry vocabulary like closed loop supply chains, degrowth models, or trying to wrap your minds around the latest in material innovations (mushroom leather is king today, but for all we know this could be replaced by an even weirder product next week). You still want to experiment with your style and find that shopping “sustainably” can actually be really difficult on your wallet (recent research on that here). You are simultaneously the perfect climate change agent and the perfect prey for the commercial world.
That being said, if you don’t fit into this category, you are still invited to find a space here. There’s room for everyone! I’d like to think businesses and consultancies that work in fashion and lifestyle would read something like this, to understand what the young fashion nerd with little to no budget cares about, but I won’t be waiting around for their approval. Amazing newsletters surrounding luxury, trends, and styling already exist (some of which I have in my recommendations), but I often find myself bending their playbook to fit my own capabilities and environmental non-negotiables. I would love to be a piece to the puzzle that brings Gen Z further into the discourse!
And I’ve Been Saying That will NOT be a space where I write cool things in the hopes to sell my soul to the first partnership that pays a high price, just for a stamp of approval that they are relatable & reliable to the community I am trying to cultivate. Nah! What I want is for everyone to have the mindset that we can be 1% better to the earth each day with small habits, while connecting the missing pieces that are hidden from the everyday consumer to confuse us and make us BUY and BUY and BUY. Until there’s nothing left here but mounds of discarded microplastic-filled garments. It is genuinely an addiction, which makes it hard to break – but I believe if you care, and can be gentle with yourself in this process, we can do the hard things. Imperfect environmentalism is the way forward.
“Being the perfect ethical consumer isn’t the point. Thinking about your consumption is.” -Aja Barber, Consumed
To all my friends and family back home that get the majority of their clothing from outlets and Amazon— I carry you with me everywhere. Each time I visit, I am asked to give an opinion on where to shop, why a certain brand is problematic, or if I like this new blue dress you got (I love it because it’s a great color and you are beautiful; I hate it because it was purchased from a company that refuses to slow down production and watches the hands of their laborers bleed in deathtrap factories for little to no pay). A return flight to London leaves me with swirling thoughts of how to put two worlds together, to create resolutions in a massive global chain while at the other end shift consumer habits one person at a time. To be the eagle eye while also creating an uprising on a tiny anthill.
The shopper in east London is also FAR and AWAYYYY different from the shopper in small town America, from what is readily available to price point to trend. I hope that I can put all my experiences together to form something that speaks to both; if not entirely relatable to one, at least allow them to understand another point of view that is equally as valuable when the common end goal is to enjoy life’s goods and protect what bits we do have on this planet.
It’s called And I’ve Been Saying That a) because I say this when speaking with friends about things we agree on, issues we have with the way things are, and so on. The second reason being b) by the time I’m typing it out, I’ve already mulled it over with five friends and let it bounce around the walls of my own echo chamber so much that I finally need to release it. It might not be new, or trendy, but that is not the point. The point is I’ve BEEN saying it, and I hope it carries on to be something that other people keep in the back of their mind when the same damn problems come back into rotation in a new form – because that’s what they do. We never fully break the system if it does not continually fall from our lips and spread like wildfire.
Luckily, you don’t need a lot of money or clothing from a brand’s “Conscious Edit” to get it done. Wearing what you have is resistance in its own right, and that’s exactly what will remain at the heart of this newsletter. Be prepared for links to trustworthy resources, personal anecdotes, pop culture takes (I don’t have time to go into heavy detail about Bad Bunny’s Mugler corset ensemble from Coachella weekend 2, but dayummmmm), conversations with friends, and good ole trial and error. I look forward to seeing how this space grows!
With love,
Ryann x
You've always had such a great sense of style...God bless you in this new endeavor, or endeavour, as the Brits would say.