I found this camel coat in a local charity shop for £15 and is originally from BHS.
Prior to this I hadn’t really thought I needed one, but as soon as I bought it I realised it was exactly what I needed in my wardrobe.
How much does a camel coat cost? Well it’s relative to each particular retail site, but for a good quality camel coat you’d be looking at upwards of £50 at least.
This is why I love shopping second hand, you never know what you’re going to find!
This camel coat goes with everything in my wardrobe, keeps me warm and I feel like I finally look ‘cool!’ (whatever that is!).
With this and my Masha Hasel bag my look is complete and I no longer have to wonder ‘what will I wear with this outfit?’
It is oversized at a size 16 but this means I can wear a thick jumper underneath it.
Camel coats are always in fashion and I now realise that perhaps it was just what I needed after all.
Camel coats are versatile and can be worn with anything from a pair of skinny jeans to leather leggings or even as a formal wear piece.
Camel coats are usually not as slim fitting on women as they are on men, however, you can pin a belt onto the coat, or cinch the waist for a slimmer look but this depends on your own personal style.
Like I said previously, I’ve found this camel coat goes with everything in my wardrobe from pleather cream shorts and a slogan t-shirt to sweats and converse!
It really is like the Swiss army knife of winter wear!
Depop and Charity Shops
I really love Depop and am always on there looking for something new to add to my wardrobe!
In fact, I shop more on Depop now than I ever did before and also more than any of those fast fashion sites, save for the occasional shop on ASOS of course!
(But I also try to limit this because I do realise that even though ASOS is better quality, it is still somewhat ‘fast fashion’ I’m trying my best to give that up for good.)
Depop launched in 2011 and is now one of the biggest fashion (mostly) re-selling sites around.
Their revenue and gross merchandise sales more than doubled in 2020 to $70 and $650 million respectively.
Over 30 million people have signed up to Depop and it has 4 million active buyers and 2 million active sellers.
(So you can be guaranteed to find SOMETHING to wear/use!)
90% of Depop’s active users are under 26 and is most popular in the US and UK followed by Australia and Italy.
This doesn’t surprise me though, I definitely saw an uptake in Depop sellers during the various lockdowns in the UK at least.
Like I said, I’m giving up fast fashion for good and am always checking Depop first if I see something I might want, especially if an influencer I follow shares an outfit that I really like the look of!
You can be guaranteed that somebody will have it on Depop so it’s always worth looking there first!
Fashion Goes Circular
Did you know that over 350,000 tonnes (£140 million worth) of used but still wearable clothing goes to landfill in UK every year?
This equates to about 30% of unwanted clothing going to landfill.
Great Britain sends over 700,000 tonnes of clothing to recycling centres, textile banks, clothes collections and to charity each year, which is enough to fill 459 Olympic size swimming pools!
We all really need to do better and think carefully about each purchase before we make them and ask ourselves how it will fit into our existing wardrobes.
These days though, most influencers have a Depop page where you can follow them and turn on notifications so you can the first to know when they’ve uploaded to their page.
And who wouldn’t want to own a piece of clothing that their favourite influencer once wore?
When once it was looked down upon to own an item of clothing from a charity shop, or be a place where your Nan shopped, they are having something of a re-resurgence and are once again becoming cool places to shop and own pieces from.
Shops like Zara are sending their un-sold items to charity shops for them to sell on, so sometimes you can be lucky and find a Zara piece still with the tags on!
Like me with my camel coat, you can always find on trend pieces out of season in charity shops and if you’re lucky enough to live in an affluent area, you may just be lucky enough to get some designer pieces in there too!
How I Style My Camel Coat
Like I said previously, camel coats are like the Swiss Army knife of winter wear! They really can be worn with anything and can dress up even the simplest of outfits.
I wear mine all the time and I love how versatile a piece it has become in my wardrobe.
Of course a camel coat looks as good with neutrals as it does with brighter colours, so if you’ve a brightly coloured loungewear set that you wore during lockdown, you needn’t worry about how to style it up for it to become outerwear!
You can just as easily style your camel coat with workwear, as you can with a more relaxed outfit on the weekend. The real double duty item in your wardrobe this season for sure.
Dressed up or dressed down, a camel coat will see you through and add a stylish touch to any outfit.
It looks as good on Mum's on the school run, as it does on the gym bunny after her morning Pilates.
From dog walking to coffee dates and everything in between, the one fashion item you're going to need this season is a camel coat.
Dress it up or dress it down, from cinema dates in your pleather trousers and silk shirt, to early morning bread runs to the shops in your 'could almost be outerwear' lockdown loungewear, a camel coat can cope with them all, and most importantly, make you look put together in minutes.
So do yourself (and your wardrobe a favour) and purchase* a camel coat, today!
*second hand of course! *
Have you added a camel coat to your wardrobe yet? I'd love to see how you style it!
Sarah xoxoxo
