Cora Maria

I think confidence often comes naturally to me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t struggle with it on occasion. How to have confidence in j-fashion is one of the most frequently asked questions in kawaii fashion spaces, and it seems like most advice given amounts to “Just don’t care about what other people think!” In this article, I would like to provide some more practical advice that I have found to work for myself and/or others. Find inspirational icons to follow For someone who struggles with confidence, this could be tricky since instead of being a source of inspiration, your chosen icons could become sources of comparison and insecurity. Don’t just support the people with the biggest wardrobes or the most conventionally attractive bodies; find people who are like you. If you’re a trans man, find trans men who dress in kawaii fashion. If you’re a person of colour, there are plenty of alternative fashion icons just like you! You can find style icons who are disabled,...

Photography by @vessmess_create What is a sustainable wardrobe exactly? Is it a capsule wardrobe? A minimal wardrobe? A wardrobe only comprised of sustainably produced, DIY, secondhand, or expensive pieces? When you define a sustainable wardrobe strictly by those parameters, a lot of people are left behind. Not everyone has the time, energy, resources, or skill to make their own clothes. Not everyone can afford or fit into sustainable brands. Not everyone can find their size or style in thrift shops. In my quest to make the sustainable fashion movement accessible to everyone, I offer you a guide on how to curate your own sustainable wardrobe regardless of background and/or circumstance. Replace the fast fashion mindset with a sustainable one. I strongly believe that the only thing you need to create a sustainable wardrobe is to have a sustainable fashion mindset. While the fast fashion mindset encourages you to buy based on price, convenience, and quantity without qu...

Photography by @vessmess_create The first time I heard of sweatshops was in primary school. I can’t remember the details, but my class and the one next door were sitting in front of our teachers who, in the middle of reading or teaching or making announcements, had somehow gone on a tangent where they briefly talked about children in sweatshops. This was in 2010. Three years before Rana Plaza. The first time I heard of sustainable fashion was in my first year of university. I can’t remember the details, but out of a list of six social enterprises, I chose to do an assignment on Undress Runways . I watched Edda Hamar’s Ted Talk on the harsh realities of the fast fashion industry. I watched her explain the origin of the $15 dress she wore, and I watched her take it off, undo a belt, and a bamboo dress tumbled to her ankles. On the Undress Runways website, I flicked through the brands she featured on her runway. None of them, apart from one that looked to be inactive, looked li...

@blueserenade A year ago, I decided that I was no longer going to support the fast fashion industry whenever possible. I could no longer, in good conscious, give my money and attention to such a cruel and corrupt industry. Because I never relied 100% on fast fashion, I wasn't missing much, and I have since opted for more sustainable alternatives and ways of thinking. I won’t detail the ethical and environmental issues of fast fashion here, but I will give you my top five reasons why I don’t miss fast fashion from a consumer perspective. If you are someone who does still shop fast fashion for any reason, please read this article: ‘How to be Sustainable if Fast Fashion is Your ONLY Option’ . It’s poor quality. Some of it is admittedly decent, and some of it is absolutely shoddy. At Factorie, I bought a purple and white striped top with a lovely pink around the neck hole but after one wash it shrank and became nearly unwearable, insisting that it exposed a ...

Photos by @vessmess_create on Instagram. When I first discovered the sustainable fashion movement, I rejected it because I felt like there wasn’t a place for me and what I wanted. I thought that my style would suffer, or I’d have to give it up completely. Starting last July, I came to realise that the opposite is true, and I feel like I have never been more fashionable than I am now. I know more about my clothing. Fashionable people are expected to know a lot about fashion, and while some people might be able to go on and on about the trademarks and key pieces of a particular brand or designer, they often don’t know or care enough to know about the supply chains behind their garments. I feel like knowing who made my clothes, what they’re made from, and what impact my clothes have on the planet gives me more credibility as a fashion enthusiast. “This one-of-a-kind dress was handmade from up-cycled fabric scraps by an aspiring designer from Perth” or “These dungarees were...

Fanart by @eclecticlunarhop on Instagram. There are so many things I love to wear or would love to do that aren’t good for the environment. I would love to add more glittery things to my wardrobe, but glitter is a micro-plastic. I would love to bleach my hair, but bleach poisons the earth. I would love to buy a pair of Irregular Choice shoes, but they often use leather and other non-eco-friendly materials. I want to support my friends' businesses, but I don’t know the hands that make their clothes. I love things that are plastic, artificial, and bad for the Earth. I also love the Earth. Isn’t it ironic that the people who feel the most guilty about their environmental impact are the ones doing their best to reduce it, while others get to consume and consume without feeling the weight of a dying world every single day? Isn’t it ironic that even though it’s not my fault that fast fashion companies are violating human rights every single day, I still feel personally res...

  Keep looking forward. Photo by @volkphotographyy on Instagram.   It’s been a week since Fashion Revolution Week ended, but the fight for a more ethical, sustainable, and transparent fashion industry is not over. After asking "Who made my clothes?", it’s time to ask, “What is my next step?” I believe that any change is good change. If you take any step towards a more sustainable lifestyle, no matter how small, you bet I will congratulate you with much enthusiasm. When you first think about making better choices, you’ll often find yourself overwhelmed by all the wrongs of the world and wonder why you should bother. Instead, you focus on one thing and work on that and see how it goes. Once you've reached your first goal though, there comes a point when you have to consider what your next step might be. It’s easy to get caught in the trap of “Well I’m already doing something so why do I have to change more?” but in reality that first step is to built mome...

A question every influencer should ask. Art credit goes to @the_stitchess on Instagram. Recently more and more fashion influencers have decided to ditch fast fashion in pursuit of a more ethical and sustainable lifestyle, and beyond that, most seem to be at least vaguely aware of the atrocities within the fashion industry. I’m also willing to bet (or hope) that a large number are still unaware of the ethical and environmental issues behind the brands they flaunt. With Fashion Revolution Week just a few hours away, these issues will be brought to the forefront of many fashion communities, and simply being unaware is becoming less common. Regardless of if they know the truth about the fashion industry or not, is it appropriate to criticise influencers for supporting fast fashion? This week I will go through the pros and cons of each argument, and try to come up with a solution to help people encourage their favourite influencers to make better choices. Yes, we should criti...

I know the answer for a few of these items, but that isn't enough. One of the things that has bugged me about my blog is how much I’ve focused on individual responsibility when it comes to sustainable fashion. It’s been all about how you  can shop better, how you  can reduce your consumption, how you  should use and dispose of your clothes in better and more eco-friendly ways. Yes, individual responsibility is incredibly important because large groups of people boycotting brands forces them to adapt or die, but there is also great change to be made in activism. The highly problematic fashion industry has created systems that are nearly impossible to navigate in a completely ethical and eco-friendly way. I’m here to say that it’s time for us to take a stand against the system and a stand against the brands. It’s time for the alternative fashion community to participate in Fashion Revolution Week. What is Fashion Revolution Week? Fashion Revolution Week i...

All photos have been used with permission from the brands involved. When I first came across the ethical and sustainable fashion movement, I rejected it because I felt like no one was considering the people who liked to dress as colourfully and outrageously as I do. After spending about eight months observing the ethical and sustainable fashion circle, I’ve been able to curate a list of the brands I’m sure other people like myself would want to know about. These brands are colourful, creative, cute, and clean of many of the wrongs within the fashion industry today. They’re all ethical, and they’re all making an effort to be sustainable, from making scrunchies from fabric scraps to basing their entire brand on up-cycling waste. Even if you can’t shop at these brands due to cost or geographical location, they’re still beacons of creativity and inspiration that deserve appreciation. CLEAN, the Label I’m starting with unisex brand Clean the Label because it is the only brand...