Laura's Kledingkast - sustainability in fashion

When you say sustainability, what comes to mind first? Most people think of foods, plastic pollution, climate change. But have you ever considered how fashion influences on the environment? In fact, globally, there’s one garbage truck of textile waste dumped at a landfill or burnt every second. This waste makes a huge carbon footprint that has a deleterious impact on the earth.

Laura’s Kledingkast (Laura’s wardrobe) which opened in 2020 handles 2nd-hand clothes at a reasonable price. The owner Laura has taken care of being sustainable for a long time and her focus is especially minimizing waste. And she finally started her business in the fashion industry.

We had the chance to interview the owner of the store.

Can you introduce yourself a little bit the idea behind your concept of business?

My name is Laura and I started my business last year in August after finishing my studies in animal management. I have always been busy with sustainability, and I think it is important that people are more aware of it as well, food, animals, fashion industry because they have a huge impact on the climate. After my studies I worked in the field for a while, but I wasn’t happy there because I don’t like to work for others or the regular 9 to five job. Then I got the idea of the store, as I’ve always been into fashion, and that’s how I started the business.

What does sustainability mean for you?

For me it is reducing your own consumption which has a lot of influence on the world, for example, food, fashion, driving and flying. These are also things that need a lot of resources.

Where do you get second-hand clothing from?

Driving around a lot, making connections, visiting markets, you have to be on the look all the time because you can find them anywhere. There's so much clothing on the world that, you can actually get it from everywhere. There is no need to get new clothes as the old ones seem to never end.

Has sustainability always been something that you have always followed?

I have always been busy with it. When I was thirteen, I started to be aware of what was happening in the world and at fifteen I became vegetarian. These were the first steps in my journey of being sustainable.

Is there something that might be harder for you than stores that sell new products?

When you have a second-hand store, you can either buy already sorted packages or pick everything up yourself, which is what I like to do. Then it’s a surprise what you find and every item is actually unique. Another cool part in this is when the customer comes into the store, they won’t know either what they will find there.

Is your client base mostly Leeuwarden?

That’s how it started but now it’s also other cities in Friesland. And because I do Instagram selling the customers are also from other parts the Netherlands, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Nijmegen. Yes, an Instagram account. With the lockdown last year, I had to come with something to keep my business going and so I started selling the clothes on Instagram stories. This works perfectly for me as the store is very small. In the future there might be another store in Groningen or somewhere else, or I was even thinking about creating a combination of a weekend café and a store. Also, as animals are close to my heart, I would love to include vegan food into this concept.

How did you come up with the name?

I started with a pop-up shop to see how all this works and a lot of the items I sold were from my own closet, as I had way too many clothes. That’s why the name Laura’s Kledingkast (Laura’s wardrobe).

Was it hard to start the business?

Looking back, I think “How did I do that?”. I’m not really into planning and structure but somehow it always works out for me. You need to have a passion for what you do and be authentic and then people will recognize it. What I think is the most important in starting a business is to just go for it and to take a risk.

What do you look for when buying sustainable?

When I purchase clothes, they already are sustainable as they are second-hand, and they don’t have to be produced again. What I did struggle with was whether to buy and sell leather or not. However, there is a market for it and people want to buy it so I thought it would be good to offer them the opportunity to buy second-hand leather instead of buying it new.

In conclusion, Laura’s Kledingkast is a secondhand clothing store located on the Voorstreek 32a in Leeuwarden but she also sells a lot of her products online through social media. Laura buys her clothes from local sellers and markets.

People tend to think that sustainability only applies on food and packaging, but it can also be applied to clothing: If people buy more secondhand clothes, less new clothes have to be produced. It might not have such a big impact on the environment, but each little bit adds up in the end.