17 Free Slow Fashion Apps That Will Help You Curate a Conscious Closet
By Stella Hertantyo
If we want more people to embrace the ethos of slow fashion, we need to find ways to make it accessible for all different kinds of people with different lifestyles. Many of us lead fast-paced lifestyles and must juggle several demands at any given moment. But, as fashion and technology begin to merge, there has been a rise in apps that enable us to take part in the slow fashion movement using technology we already have.
These apps are challenging the notion that slow fashion has to be inconvenient and time-consuming by simplifying the process of curating a conscious closet, from your phone.
So, whether you are looking to be reinspired by your current closet, looking for a guide on conscious brands, wanting to take care of your most loved clothes and make them last, learning how to shop your closet, looking to swap before you shop, renting for a special occasion, or joining the preloved movement – these free slow and sustainable fashion apps have got you covered! Many of these apps have in-app fees, depending on the services they offer, but they are all free to download.
This guide contains affiliate links, which means we will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you choose to purchase through some of these links. This helps us continue to create these free resources for you! As always, we only feature brands we love (and that we think you'll love too!) and that meet CFC's strict sustainability criteria.
Conscious brand guides
These apps will help you discover brands that are prioritizing sustainability and using fashion as a force for good so that you can invest in garments that reflect your values.
Good On You
The Good On You app makes discovering sustainable and ethical brands much easier with their trusted brand ratings and ethical fashion knowledge.
Conscious closet contribution: This constantly evolving and updated brand directory – which currently features over 3000 brands – allows you to easily understand the impact that various fashion brands have on people, the planet, and animals. Their rankings let you make a more informed decision and shop your values when you decide to invest in a new garment or accessory. The app also provides sustainability tips, guides, and style edits to help you stay up to date with the latest in eco-conscious fashion.
CFC Partner
Delve
The Delve app features a directory of conscious brands that have been vetted by independent certifications. A portion of each purchase made via Delve goes towards an Impact Fund.
Conscious closet contribution: By using emissions data, industry rankings, and independently verified certifications, Delve helps you cut through the greenwashing noise. You'll find a directory of vetted conscious brands on the app along with carbon footprint calculations to help you measure the impact of each purchasing decision.
Plus when you buy through one of the brands on Delve's directory, your impact will be amplified because Delve will invest in UK community-scale renewable energy projects on your behalf with each purchase.
Renoon
Renoon is here to help you merge your style and sustainability values and encourage a generation moved by values and positive impact. Renoon also allows you to read about the latest efforts from brands and share your voice on possible greenwashing from some of them.
Conscious closet contribution: Renoon gives you multiple options for working towards a more conscious closet. Through the app, you will be able to find sustainable brands with detailed product and brand information, unique secondhand and vintage pieces, and even a wide selection of rentals that will help you participate in the circular fashion revolution.
Mending, repair, and clothing care
The following apps are making the mending and repair movement more accessible and helping you access services that will make your loved clothes last even longer.
Sojo
Sojo is the UK’s first clothing alterations and repairs app and they are on a mission to bring back the culture of mending and repairing. The app does this all while supporting local artisans and tailors who have the skills we need to make our loved clothes last — or to adjust a preloved purchase so that it fits just right.
Conscious closet contribution: The Sojo app makes clothing alterations and tailoring easier than ever by offering a pickup and delivery service so that you’ll be wearing your favorite items again before you know it. [Hear from Sojo founder Josephine Philips on the Conscious Style Podcast.]
Fix That Shirt
Fix That Shirt is a Parisian fashion-tech start-up that is building an app to help you repair and upcycle your clothes with ease. They also focus on creating jobs for people with sewing skills such as established tailors, fashion students, or sewing hobbyists.
Conscious closet contribution: Their app connects you with local artisans and makers who can help you bring new life to your clothes, depending on what you require.
MendIt App
Currently in their pilot phase, MendIt App is a Houston-based app that will help you invest in the clothing you already have.
Conscious closet contribution: MendIt aims to support local businesses that specialize in mending clothes by offering a marketplace where local businesses can connect with people who are interested in using their services.
Wardrobe digitization and personal style
Ready to slow down your consumption? The following multi-functional apps will help you rediscover your wardrobe and encourage you to lean into the creativity that comes from working with what you already have.
Whering
Whering is a digital wardrobe app that imitates the experience of online shopping, except you are shopping your wardrobe instead! Getting creative with what you already have saves you time, money, and reduces your consumption.
Conscious closet contribution: The app enables you to digitize the clothes you own, create and plan new outfit combinations, and provides styling suggestions based on your existing wardrobe. Plus, Whering will help you shop more mindfully with their vintage, rental, and sustainable shopping suggestions. And, if you are looking to make your loved clothes last, then you can also book care and repair services to your door.
Save Your Wardrobe
Save Your Wardrobe is here to reconnect you with what you already have. The app helps you make the most of the clothes you already own by encouraging you to buy less, buy better, and be content with what's in your closet.
Conscious closet contribution: By digitizing your wardrobe, this app allows you to relearn the creativity that comes with working with what you already own, seeking easily accessible style advice, and connecting you to an ecosystem of slow fashion partners – including repair and dry-cleaning business, slow fashion brands, and donation options – so that you can embrace slow fashion in whatever way works for your lifestyle.
30 Wears
The 30 Wears app allows you to track your clothing usage and encourages the ethos of ‘buy less, wear what you have more’ by challenging users to stick to the #30wearschallenge – a challenge that was created to encourage mindful shopping by making sure you wear each piece you buy at least 30 times – and tracking what you wear, each day.
Conscious closet contribution: This app challenges you to take on the #30wears challenge and track your wears on the app. This will help you avoid the culture of disposability in the fashion industry by allowing you to hold yourself accountable for buying less and wearing what you have more.
Peer-to-peer clothing rental
If you want to find the perfect outfit for a special occasion, these apps will help you get just what you need while steering clear of impulse buys.
By Rotation
By Rotation is a peer-to-peer fashion rental app that allows you to monetize your wardrobe, and access designer fashion pieces at a fraction of their original price.
Conscious closet contribution: By promoting a sharing economy, By Rotation challenges you to rethink your consumption habits and welcome others into your wardrobe. [Hear from By Rotation founder Eshita Kabra-Davies on the Conscious Style Podcast.]
Tulerie
Tulerie is on a mission to get us to buy less and borrow more, using their luxury fashion rental app that allows you to lend what you own and borrow what you want.
Conscious closet contribution: By lending and borrowing, you are keeping products that already exist in circulation. This app allows you to embrace the excitement that comes with buying something new, without having to compromise on your sustainability values.
Wardrobe
Wardrobe is a peer-to-peer rental app that allows you to borrow garments from the fashion creators that you love – and whose closets you envy! This app is creating a sharing economy with thousands of luxury, designer, and vintage pieces made available by influencers, fashion-lovers, and celebs.
Conscious closet contribution: This app allows you to have affordable access to luxury and vintage clothing so that you can borrow more and shop less. This allows you to rent a designer piece at a fraction of the price for those occasions when you need something a little different, but without buying something new.
Clothing swaps
These three apps all give you the option to swap before you shop and fulfill your desire for novelty, without buying anything new.
Nuw
Nuw is a virtual clothing swapping platform where your clothing is your currency. The app enables you to add new-to-you preloved pieces to your wardrobe while giving others the opportunity to fall in love with pieces from your wardrobe that no longer spark joy.
Conscious closet contribution: Responsibly rehome garments from your closet that you no longer wear while adding new-to-you pieces to your wardrobe, without buying anything new.
Dopplle
Dopplle is a clothes swapping app created for students, by students. It is a peer-to-peer swapping app that creates space for students from across the UK who want to save money and embrace sustainable fashion. The UK-based app connects students and gives them the opportunity to swap their closets within their university and college communities.
Conscious closet contribution: If you are a student in the UK, you can use Dopplle to refresh your wardrobe sustainably, by exchanging clothes that no longer spark joy for garments from another student’s wardrobe.
Secondhand marketplaces
Take on the world in secondhand style and extend the lifespans of clothing that already exists with these apps for buying and selling preloved garments.
Vestiaire Collective
Vestiaire Collective is a certified B-Corp with a preloved designer fashion online marketplace. You can also sell designer pieces that you have in your closet and connect with Vestiaire Collective’s global fashion activist community.
Conscious closet contribution: This app allows you to invest in your most coveted designer pieces, without having to buy them new. Add preloved designer pieces to your closet and take on the world in secondhand style.
Depop
Depop is inviting you to be a part of the generation that is changing fashion by downloading the app and connecting with people selling rare and unique fashion from all over the world.
Conscious closet contribution: Whether you are looking for something preloved, vintage, reworked, or something from a small independent business – Depop has got you covered.
Thrift+
Thrift+ was founded to make the charity shopping experience as good as the best online clothes retailers, ensuring fewer clothes end up in a landfill. Shop all of your favorite brands, while still being a part of the preloved movement.
Conscious closet contribution: Resell your clothing or shop secondhand from a global community of people working towards a more circular fashion industry and promoting the joy of preloved fashion.
We hope that you find these apps useful and that they can help you create a conscious closet that reflects your values, in whatever way is accessible to you and your lifestyle!
About the Author:
Stella Hertantyo is based in Cape Town, South Africa, and is currently completing her PGDip in Sustainable Development to accompany her undergraduate in Multimedia journalism. She is a slow-living enthusiast and a lover of low-impact fashion.
She is passionate about encouraging an approach to sustainability that is inclusive, accessible, and fun as we try to figure out how to create a more sustainable and just world, together.
When Stella is not in front of her laptop doing uni work, you'll probably find her reading, writing, illustrating, or baking/cooking. A dip in the ocean, or a walk in the mountains, are the two things that bring her the most peace.
