Join the Retrospecced Revolution!

This week is Fashion Revolution week, and it marks the anniversary of the terrible events that took place in the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh, when the building collapsed killing over a thousand workers. The building was one of five garment factories in that area manufacturing clothing and accessories for the western market. Unfortunately, on that day over 1000 lives were lost due to the low building standards of the factory; we believe that we should do everything in our power to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again. Want to help? Read on… Fashion Revolution is a movement that’s turning fashion into a force for good. It asks us to be curious with clothes and accessories that we wear and question ‘who made my clothes?’ and ‘at what cost?’ It’s a tough question to answer, and not many brands can, but we need to start questioning where our clothes come from and who made them. However, this is a question we can answer here at Retrospecced! We work with the charity Vision Aid Overseas, who is the recipient of up to 70,000 donated frames each week. We regularly go through these donations and select the very best of these frames to refurbish. And Voila!

Did you know? 95% of discarded clothing and accessories can be recycled or upcycled!

One of the initiatives that Fashion Revolution is pioneering this year is the #haulternative – an initiative that we here at Retrospecced can really get behind, and we think you might be interested too! Together we have huge power as consumers, and each purchase we make sends a big message to manufacturers about what our priorities are. So what is the #haulternative (aside from being a wonderful pun)? It’s basically the ethos that new clothes don’t have to be brand new – just new to you. When you buy vintage or upcycled you still get the little surge of excitement of possessing something new in your wardrobe but you also get something else, you get its history. To survive to the stage where it's good enough condition to be passed on, it means that garment is high quality and has been cared for well – which is why it’s still in great condition, a lot like our frames. This also means that the price point can be a lot lower, meaning more bang for your buck! Take these Chanel frames for example - when upcycled by Retrospecced their price is just £35, yet the average price of new Chanel glasses is upwards of £200. Saving lives and pennies: you can’t go wrong. As we mentioned earlier a lot of items have history, and much of our fashion inspiration today comes from looking back at what went before. Who wouldn’t want to look like Hepburn, Monroe or even Brando?! It’s also worth noting that all the above wore pretty exquisite glasses from time to time (just saying). Take a look at our vintage frames and see if you can find your perfect pair and channel your inner Retrospecced star. If you would like to find out more about the Fashion Revolution and what else you can do to get involved then be sure to visit their website. Happy shopping! This post has been written by Paris Richardson.