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hey fellow fatties! 

welcome to our little (but still very thicc) chunk of the internet. the goal for our blog is to provide a space away from instagram where our community can learn more about us and all the reasons we felt creating FatCycled was so important - not only for people, but the planet too. our posts here are going to be more in depth and may even have references. we would love to hear from you so leave us a comment and tell us what your liked or learned or your favourite green living tip! 

so without further ado...

if you haven't heard the term planned obsolescence, it refers to purposefully creating a product that needs to be completely replaced often rather than repaired. over the last 100 years this model has been snowballing in the global north, affecting people and the planet really negatively. In Orsola de Castro's booked Loved Clothes Last she gives a brief history, here it is: (planned obsolescence) "started in the USA in the 1920's with General Motors, to encourage the buying of more cars, more often and was originally intended as a way to increase production (and jobs) by deliberate manipulation of the design of a product in order for it to break sooner." In 2021 we are seeing planned obsolescence in almost every intersection of our lives. From vehicles, to electronics, to furniture and our clothes.

when we see this in fashion, it is especially prevalent with trend-based, fast-fashion companies (shein, fashion nova, boohoo etc). these companies are creating massive amounts of clothing quickly in order to capture sales, often at the cost of the quality of goods and the person creating the clothes. when they fail to sell all of the clothes, they do extreme markdowns and tell us consumers via every channel possible about all these great savings they are giving us. while we are technically receiving a super sweet deal, when we think more critically about it most folks know that these garments are not created ethically. they cut corners putting workers in danger and pay unacceptable wages. they use cheap fabric that harm the earth and in some cases dump chemical waste into cities sources of drinking water. oops, we were talking about planned obsolescence weren't we? haha

since the humans producing most of our fast-fashion are met with terrible working conditions and wages - do we really think these clothes will be built to last? the answer is an overwhelming no - these clothes end up in landfill, and boy do we have a garbage problem!

so how do we at FatCycled want to respond to mass sales? the answer is simple - we won’t be doing them! we want you to take the time to consider your current wardrobe, wear your items as much as you can, and make a conscious effort to buy only what you need to fill the gaps in your closet. we don’t want to bombard you with deep discounts just to get our products out the door. that goes against what we stand for - and still runs the risk of us contributing to clothes ending up in the landfill! instead, we want to price our clothes competitively, curate outfits and looks to help you get inspired, and slowly build inventory. we don’t want to push out items because they’re “last season” - we want to help you build a season-less wardrobe that can seamlessly take you from January to July and back! 

we do want to help you save money while looking good in your new clothes so we plan to implement a markdown model that will bring our clothes down in price three times over three months. first, we’ll have our blue tag price, which is what you’ll see on the website today. after four weeks, we’ll mark down that price to our green tag price, which will take 5% off. after another four weeks, we’ll mark down to our orange tag price, which will be another 5% off. finally, we’ll take our prices down another 5% four weeks later for our yellow tag price - the lowest the clothes will ever be listed. we want to give you time to think about the items you’re loving and this model gives you the space to do so!

FatCycled won’t ever do sales but that doesn’t mean we won’t do promotions. for the month of January, we’re going to donate all local delivery fees to the Parkdale Foodbank. we’ll continue to advocate for our local businesses and community support organizations any way we can.

keep an eye on our blog posts - next, we’ll focus on the word “fat” and some tips on how to get into a body neutral mindset. 

lots of love,

kait & madi  

references/suggested reading:
aja barber, consumed 
orla de castor, loved clothes last