The wife reveals how she weaned herself from fast fashion

A fashion lover has revealed how she turned her back on shopping after realizing she was spending hundreds of pounds every month on poor quality clothes that wouldn’t last.

Kayleigh Fazan, who now lives in Amsterdam, says she would once invest her monthly salary in fast fashion after becoming addicted to shopping in thrift stores as a teenager.

A self-confident former shopaholic who worked in the retail industry for 20 years, she had an epiphany when she realized she had so many clothes she could barely wear.

That moment led her to found the International Retail Academy in 2020, which helps advise retailers on how to connect with consumers to buy clothes that will last longer.

Kayleigh says she got her first taste of fast fashion at the age of 16 when she got a job at a popular high street store – and it didn’t take long for her addiction to kick in.

She told MailOnline: ‘I started on a salary and would buy things just because there was a 50% discount for employees.

“So you can imagine starting to earn your first salary, you’re getting £3 or £400 a month and I’ve just been buying crap all the time.” T-shirts, skirts, shoes, accessories, you name it, my closet was full.

“I was just obsessed, like completely obsessed, because I had my money, I could do whatever I wanted with it.”

The 37-year-old said that one day her mother told her that she had too many clothes in her wardrobe and that she needed a long time.

Kayleigh then decided to do a bulk sale, donating her clothes to various charity shops around Manchester, where she was based before moving to Holland, which meant she only had 20 per cent of her wardrobe.

While most people have one closet for all their things, Kayleigh had two that were filled to the brim with different clothes, and under her bed were all of her many pairs of shoes.

In fact, she said she struggled to get dressed for work in the morning simply because she had too many choices.

A few years later, when she was in her early twenties, Kayleigh started a new job at Diesel and said the higher price of clothes meant she was buying less.

The mum-of-one said: ‘I would take too much time to get ready in the morning because there is just too much choice. There was so much noise in my dressing room.

It was around that time that I started actually shopping consciously and I stopped buying things just because it was the latest trend or it was, you know, featured in a magazine or featured on a celebrity. One day I just stopped buying things.’

She said: “I’m very happy to say that to this day I still only have one small wardrobe where I hang my shirts, dresses, coats and then I have two shelves where I’ve got some tops and jackets and then some trousers. And this is a small wardrobe.

“I need two minutes in the morning to get ready. I know exactly where I’m going, I’m pulling out the pieces from before, you know, 10, 12 years and I feel good.”

Kayleigh says she now only shops if she really needs something, like if her body has changed, not because it’s a trend. She added that just the other day she was wearing a blouse she bought when she was 25 – which makes her 12 years old.

“As a human being, you just have to wear clothes, right?” Kayleigh says: ‘And you can get these clothes from friends, like you, maybe you have a cool aunt who doesn’t wear her jackets or dresses anymore, you go and borrow them from her and then tailor them.

“You can go to vintage shops or charity shops and get pieces, quality pieces and give them a new spin and make them your own.

“I don’t think it’s sustainable to go to popular fast fashion brands every weekend and spend hundreds of pounds on fashion that falls apart. It’s just not sustainable and the landfill situation is horrendous.”

Although her home is much more spacious, Kayleigh’s purse now has more money than when she was in her twenties.

She saved hundreds of pounds a month when she switched to a more sustainable lifestyle and estimates she spent most of her salary on clothes and trends as a young adult.

She said: “There was a time in my early twenties when I probably spent most of my salary just buying things.

“The latest bag, dresses, coats and everything else. And over the years I’ve had more control over my finances and I’m more aware of whether I’m filling my wardrobe just for the sake of filling, what’s going on here?

Certainly for the last five or six years everything I buy has a purpose. Now I don’t just shop for inspiration or to be sold or casually spend £100 or £500.

‘Now I go shopping with a purpose.’