Urcyberstylist - Interview
By Tara Hoskin
The emergence of the sustainable fashion movement has made room for a new market. However, the entrepreneurs we are seeing in this new market are not investors with daddy’s money behind them, but people with a social and environmental conscience. This has led to the creation of many new business ventures, usually headed by young people with unique selling points.
One of these businesses is Caitlinn Lowry’s Urcyberstylist, an online service that creates style bundles from second-hand clothing based on the customer’s desired style. Caitlinn started the Instagram page this October, and now already has over one-thousand followers and lots of happy customers.
Although Caitlinn has been shopping sustainably since secondary school by mostly using charity shops in order to get more individual pieces; her interest in sustainable fashion peaked two years ago while doing a fashion course and learning about how her clothes were made.
“I’d feel guilty about buying a new piece of clothing” she states. Many people resonate with this feeling as fast fashion has been proven to have detrimental effects on both the environment and workers. According to Oxfam, Irish people dump 225,000 tonnes of clothing every single year which creates a huge amount of waste and greenhouse gas emissions.
Also, with scandals such as the collapse of The Dhaka Garment Factory in 2013 in Bangladesh which caused the deaths of 1,134 garment workers, showing the world that the people who make their clothes are often not protected by their employers or working conditions. Things like this have caused lots of consumers to re-think how they shop. Caitlinn sees this as a positive.
“Even if it’s a trend, it’s a really good one opposed to trends that are really harmful to the environment.” Caitlinn and her business recognises the importance of small consumer choices having an influence on a large scale even if it is only one small choice.
Saying all this, starting to shop more sustainably can be hard. Small charity shops do not have paid window dressers to show you what goes with what and independent Depop sellers do not have the funds for a marketing team that shows the latest trends. If you are trying to style yourself more sustainably, Urcyberstylist can help.
Caitlinn says the service is great for “people who are getting into vintage fashion and don’t know where to start.” With each bundle comes one full outfit and an extra interchangeable piece. This gives people an idea of how to start styling their chosen style. Caitlinn advises people to explore their own style and find out what they really like by doing simple things like taking inspiration from tv shows, Pinterest and art culture. If people shop based on their own style, their fashion in turn becomes more sustainable as they are not constantly chasing ever-changing trends.
Bex describes her look as funky cottagecore!
Róisín looking so gorgeous in her bundle from urcyberstylist<3
As Jeff Bezos gets richer and richer, small businesses can struggle in competing with massive multinational corporations. If we support small local businesses, we know for a start that their workers are treated better, and it goes back into our own local economy. However, there is also a feel-good factor involved. Caitlinn buys lots of her stock for the style bundles from independent Depop sellers, “I feel better giving €30 to a small business I know opposed to Penney’s.”
If you are looking for some style inspo, interested in ordering a bundle or want to see more of Caitlinn’s journey you can follow urcyberstylist on Instagram.
