Slow and Sustainable Fashion YouTubers to Check Out
During the early stages of social distancing in the pandemic, I had a lot of time to be able to explore YouTube a lot more and I was so happy to be able to discover more YouTubers creating slow and sustainable fashion content. With fast fashion’s domination, the counter slow fashion movement is quickly building momentum and appears to not be going anywhere anytime soon. As someone who has always had a slow fashion approach to my style, I am happy to have found YouTube content that I can personally resonate with a lot more, as well as becoming more educated on the subject of sustainability . Here are some of my personal favorite slow and sustainable fashion YouTube channels I have stumbled upon during this time:
Kristen Leo
I would consider Kristen Leo as one of the pioneers of creating slow fashion and sustainability content on YouTube. She is an advocate of ethical and sustainable fashion industry practices from Greece, as well as a vegan and a Depop seller. I personally really enjoy her video essay content on the fast fashion industry and it’s unethical practices; I had been following Kristen Leo even before the start of the pandemic and I find her channel to be pretty informative about the subject. She frequently roasts Jeff Bezos underhandedly and talks about practical ways that folks can incorporate sustainable fashion practices. She is known for thrifting mostly everything she owns and only buys items brand new if they meet rigorous ethical and sustainability standards. Kristin Leo has also been featured on a popular fashion reality show in Greece called “My Style Rocks” where she attempted to use the platform to shine some light on how to incorporate second hand style by creating outfits with thrifted pieces.
Alli Vera
I got exposed to Ali Vera when I was in the baby stages of deciding to sell more of my own clothes on Depop and wanted to get a strategy down for how to sell on the platform and found her video on how to start a shop pretty helpful. She is known as @colorclub on Depop and is one of the y2k thrift queens of this particular online thrift platform. I personally really enjoyed her video where she dressed up in the same outfits as her Bratz doll for a week and to tell you the truth I was pretty impressed by how spot on her outfits were just by using the clothing items and accessories from her closet. Although Ali Vera isn’t as active on Depop as a thrift seller anymore, she occasionally drops items in her shop every once in a blue moon. I find her content to be very creative and entertaining and her skill set on Depop selling/entrepreneurship is insanely helpful for anyone who wants to attempt to sell on the platform.
Laini Ozark
I stumbled across Laini Ozark through the YouTube algorithm. Laini Ozark is a slow fashion YouTuber from the suburbs of Michigan and has a youthful “Mean Girls burn book” aesthetic opening for all her YouTube videos. She creates fashion trend videos styling both thrifted and fast fashion items to create 90s minimalist outfits as well as more casual and comfortable baggy outfits that parallel with more current y2k trends. I really enjoy Laini Ozark’s content because her style resonates with my personal style a lot and her approach to slow fashion is the most practical that I have seen for folks in their 20s; she’s very good at incorporating one of the core principles of sustainable fashion which is intentionality and creativity. I really like to watch her trend forecasts and her outfit inspo videos.
Alexa Sunshine[83]
Alexa Sunshine is another YouTuber that popped up on my algorithm, I would consider her a more “hardcore” thrift content channel like Ali Vera. She frequently posts “thrift with me” videos and hunts down pieces on her Pinterest style moodboards, and usually does so pretty successfully. Her style is colorful and fun, she is typically wearing stiff denim high rise jeans and participating in more preppy trends like the sweater vest whilst combining it with her more 80s/90s style. I also find her approach to style practical in the same way as Laini Ozark by combining some fast fashion with vintage and thrifted pieces. I really enjoy her outfit inspo videos and her Depop and ThredUp mystery box bundle openings, which is something I have never really done before so it’s very interesting to see those types of unboxings and how she styles the pieces she receives.
Twinelle
Twinelle (Danielle) is a YouTuber that showed up shortly after I stumbled upon Alexa Sunshine’s channel, Twinelle is also a more “hardcore” thrift channel and she hunts down high quality Clueless style y2k pieces that are difficult to come across in thrift stores in the general Los Angeles area. I really enjoy her thrift hauls and Depop hauls. She also does a lot of “thrift with me” videos and does flee market shopping a lot which are also really interesting videos. I particularly enjoyed the collaboration video with Alexa Sunshine and the filming of their thrifting experience at Jet Rag’s $1 clean out sale, where they let folks pick out items from clothing bags that didn’t sell for an extremely low price. She is also really good at finding vintage pieces through looking at the tag, which is one of the main ways to know you’re getting genuine vintage. Twinelle really knows some really good tips on how to decipher from non-vintage v.s. genuine vintage.
Ruby Lyn
Ruby Lyn is a YouTuber I discovered through Pinterest because I repinned an outfit of hers someone shared. I personally resonated with her style a lot through how she wears Doc Martens with her jeans and decided to check her out. Ruby Lyn has a cute Powerpuff Girls styled opening and leans into the y2k style a lot but with more subdued neutral tones when dressing herself which I really enjoy. I really like watching her ThredUp hauls and seeing her shoe hauls. Her style also parallels with the baggy jeans/pants trend that’s coming up like crazy lately. I would recommend watching her for more online thrift content and what type of items you can come across on online thrift platforms like ThredUp.
Imperfect Idealist
Imperfect Idealist (Lily) is a sustainable and ethical fashion YouTuber and blogger that popped up on my YouTube algorithm. I absolutely love her video essays on slow and sustainable fashion mindset and how she frequently points out the issue of greenwashing that a lot of big sustainable brands are guilty of, and how to actually check the standards of a brand. I really love her channel for her video essays on the nuances of the sustainable fashion movement by addressing misconceptions a lot, which I find is something that is needed in our communities in general. My favorite is the one where she interviews a Black woman Depop seller to talk about the misconceptions around the ethics around reselling thrifted clothing, which I would highly recommend if you’re not really sure where you stand on the topic, I especially liked it because I do see a lot of Black women selling on Depop and it just seems that people don’t know that a lot of BIPOC women and queer folks resell on the platform actually.