The two women giving the Miss Universe Australia competition a makeover

Miss Universe Australia finalist Sheridan Mortlock is competing for the crown in something you wouldn’t normally see at the development program: second-hand clothes.

The global sustainability and politics student – who is also a model, volunteer, host, emcee and casual government employee – travelled to Vietnam this month for the competition as one of 30 Miss Universe Australia finalists and wore second-hand fashion.

She was prepared for the seven-day trip by stylist and slow fashion advocate Jo Gambale, the pair jumping at the chance to challenge the misconception that second-hand clothing looked frumpy or outdated.

“I wanted to prove to people that it could still be of a Miss Universe Australia calibre,” Mortlock said. “The girls were amazed when I told them.”

Why slow fashion?

Mortlock said that growing up in the country had given her an appreciation for nature, and she recognised early that the pressure to always have the newest trend was not sustainable, either environmentally or personally.

“It costs so much money to keep buying all these new outfits and then believing that you can only wear them once,” the 25-year-old said.

She said one of her favourite second-hand outfits had white flared pants, a baby pink top with golden shells for buttons, and designer Miu Miu sunglasses. Her Miss Universe Australia peers kept asking where the outfits were from, and she even had offers to buy some of the unique pieces.

Gambale and Mortlock are aligned in their vision to make second-hand mainstream.Credit: Chere Koh

“I felt so rich. Rich and fabulous, and I’m like, no one in a million years would ever think this is second-hand,” she said.

“The satisfaction [of finding a piece] is so much more gratifying than the satisfaction of just buying something new as well, because you feel like you put in the work to find that, and you know that nobody else will have it.

Sheridan Mortlock (right) is wearing second-hand clothing for the Miss Universe Australia competition.Credit: Eleanor Baillieu

“There’s a lot of vintage stores out there and second-hand retailers that have curated these amazing collections of pieces which look brand new, off the rack.”

Stylist Gambale said shopping second-hand was an opportunity to be more creative and escape from big ad campaigns in stores such as H&M that can distract people from their personal style.

The Miss Universe Australia final will take place in Perth in August.Credit:

“It’s like your brain digresses to other ideas that don’t come from the heart,” she said. “It’s almost a passive way of shopping. But when you’re shopping second-hand, it is very much a proactive process.”

The stylist said many designer items without labels could be snagged for a bargain in second-hand stores such as U-Turn in Sydney.

“You can feel it, and you look at the workmanship. You’re like, jeez, this is an incredible piece,” she said. “The process is basically you just start looking. You don’t know what you’re going to find.”

What are the effects of fast fashion?

Gambale, who went into sustainable styling after working at Vogue in the mid-2000s, said the environmental and ethical implications of fast fashion motivated her advocacy, and she couldn’t justify putting money in the pockets of executives running exploitative companies.

“The fact that the average garment worker in Bangladesh gets about 2 per cent of the price of [a fast fashion] garment, I guess the feminist in me really comes out,” she said. “I think about how most people who work in the industry are women ... and that the minority of people who make money are all the rich white male guys at the top.”

Ghana received tonnes of discarded clothing from Western countries such as Australia.Credit: AP

She said she did not want to contribute to Australia’s textile waste problem: more than half of Australia’s 200,000 tonnes of donated clothing is exported to developing countries such as Ghana each year, according to the latest national waste report. There, it collects in mountains, destroying the local environment and clothing trade.

“I see these kids in Accra in Ghana who literally can’t play on the beach because there’s these massive tentacles of clothes all twisted up in the beach and that are pretty much forever stuck in there. That’s how much the stuff is being dumped on their shores,” Gambale said.

Miss Universe Australia finalist Sheridan Mortlock wears second-hand clothes - and wants the world to know it.Credit: Sheridan Mortlock Instagram

The future of slow fashion?

Gambale said that through her circular fashion consultancy Slogue, she ran workshops for young people to encourage sustainable habits and a love for clothing before they became hooked on fast fashion.

“There’s that moment when tweens start getting into fashion, and they’re still doing crafty things. They’re making the Taylor Swift bracelets out of beads and stuff. So I realised that’s actually an amazing, integral time of life to actually learn that fashion doesn’t have to mean consumption ... but that it can mean making and styling and dressing up and reworking and just playing with clothes, which I think people forget.”

She said the workshops were run by slow and circular fashion brands, which both employed creators and put them in touch with shoppers who might not be able to find them online among major retailers.

Gambale hopes to educate youth about the joys of sustainable fashion.Credit: Chere Koh

What is greenwashing and how do I avoid it?

Gambale said greenwashing – a term for when companies falsely market themselves as sustainable – made it difficult for consumers to do their own research, but it was avoidable by shopping second-hand.

“You need to have a degree in marketing-speak and you need to be psychic or something to actually get through a lot of greenwashing,” Gambale said.

“I googled, just out of interest, vintage fashion the other day … and on the top of my search was Temu and Shein.

“Never google anything ... Come at it sideways, so maybe you’re doing it through your favourite magazine, or are doing it through Instagram or using word of mouth.”

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