Tilly Bellinger is the self-annointed ‘charity-shop-god’, and it’s pretty easy to see why. A quick scroll through her socials, where she has amassed a healthy following of over 100k, and you're presented with an abundance of second-hand and sustainable fits (good ones at that) that successfully challenge the overconsumption peddled by other fashion creators. Sitting in the bedroom of her family home, Tiggy chats to me about why she turned to sustainable content, the difficulties that this has posed in her growth as a creator, and soap cutting videos.
We waste no time getting into the important stuff as our pleasantries quickly turn into discussing the pressing matter at hand: soap cutting. Tiggy asks if I’ve seen the videos on TikTok of personal care business runners slicing their enlarged bars of soap into more hospitable sizes to sell, and, of course, I answer in the affirmative. Even I partake in a casual watching of soap cutting overlaid with a Reddit story. As much as I want to delve into the diminishing effect Subway Surfers has had on attention spans worldwide (mine included), we’re not here to discuss our doomscrolling habits. These soap cutting videos actually have a beneficial element to them: sustainable soap. The easiest sustainable swap Tiggy has made so far has been a result of these videos.
“I haven’t used body wash in a bottle for years,” Tiggy tells me as she runs back from her ensuite clutching a brown paper sandwich bag. “I get them from the brand Gruum, who package up the off cuts from their bars of soap.” The swap is good value for money, too - the Manchester-based skincare company promises the equivalent of 5 bars in their ‘wonki’ lunchbags, for half the price.
It wasn’t the moreish nature of soap-cuttings and the swapping out the plastic that was the beginning of Tiggy’s career online, though. The styling videos that she makes are her most popular, and for good reason. Before starting her TikTok, Tiggy was a stylist at John Lewis, and as well as teaching her that “you can wear a belt even if your trousers fit perfectly,” the iconic British department store is where she realised how important it is to be sustainable with your sartorial choices.
“Helping people build their ‘capsule wardrobes’ made me realise that it’s so much better to have a few good nice pieces than a load of mid items.” Tiggy spent all day, every day, pulling pieces of clothing for her clients from racks, adjusting the pieces, feeling them between her fingers - which made her hyper-aware of what the clothing was actually made of. “I started to realise that some of these brands aren’t up to par with what I would want to be putting on my body.” It wasn’t like these low-quality items were being found in the bargain bin of a charity shop. The fact that John Lewis is a fairly high-end and expensive retailer doesn’t magically guarantee good quality: “I would have to tell clients that ‘this is nice (and expensive), but you can get better quality from a different brand’ quite a lot!” Tiggy insists that the real truth of a garment can be found on the inside: flipped seams, loose thread and synthetic blends hiding behind hefty price tags. “Look inside before you buy it,” she says. “Threads are coming loose, I’ll tell you that!”
It was in this styling job that Tiggy discovered a knack for content creation. She was asked to help build the social media of her branch and it was so successful (I’ve watched them - they’re funny!) that colleagues were telling her to start her own. Is it too cliche to say the rest was history? The niche that Tiggy has found herself a part of is, of course, not history.
“There was never really an epiphany moment,” she says when I asked why sustainable fashion became her focus. “I guess I’ve always been quite anxious about it - from learning about it in Year 5 science. And now it’s all over the news. I think some people are just about to brush it under [the carpet], but I can’t. I’ve never been good at not thinking about things,” she laughs, a more relatable statement seldom uttered.
“I’ve been shopping second-hand forever. Since the start of Vinted!” We spend a little time gushing over the fact that shopping second-hand is cheaper than new, and just to make Tiggy’s show-and-tell soap feel at home (and also because I am just so excited about it), I run to grab my most exciting Vinted purchase - a Stella McCartney bag I found for less than a tenner. “I just don’t understand why people love to argue about shopping second-hand, when it seems like the intellectual thing to do!”
There’s no doubt that social media thrives on constant output. When TikTok shop videos populate half of the FYP and the other half are influencers unboxing new hauls - and they do well - the temptation for smaller creators to replicate that format can be strong. The ‘sheinhaul’ hashtag has over 2.3 billion views alone. Tiggy doesn’t engage with this at all: “it’s gross to me. That’s not content. That’s just consumerism.” In an effort to rid her FYP of haul videos, or creators that post ‘come shopping with me’ videos everyday, she will simply unfollow them. “I figured that I can’t be the only person, ever, that feels like that. And it turns out, I’m not! I’ll get messages from viewers saying that my content is actually content and that it’s nice to see that you’re not just posting hauls all the time.”
Aside from the blatant consumerism that TikTok encourages with its algorithm, Tiggy makes sure her content isn’t like this because “it’s just not what the average person can do all the time. They can’t be going and buying new clothes every day. And good! Even if they had the money, they shouldn’t be doing that.”
Having such strong morals, although respectable, isn’t exactly a launchpad for success in the creator industry. Tiggy has turned down brand deals and collaborations that would have been easy money because their values didn’t align with her own. If a company can’t be transparent about their sustainability practices or is overtly unsustainable, she won’t promote it. That decision has narrowed her opportunities in an industry that prioritises volume over values.
She’s also struggled to find agencies that truly understand her stance. In some cases, representation hasn’t lasted, and agencies have ultimately dropped her because they simply couldn’t secure enough brand work that aligned with her morals. Experiences like this have left her wondering whether her insistence has slowed her momentum as a creator. “Sometimes there’s a little bit of me that wonders if I would be going further in the content creation world. Would I be having a moment or have more followers? Would I be getting more jobs if I didn’t hold myself to such high standards? But at the end of the day, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing that I was promoting those things and not staying true to myself.”
Despite this, there have been some brands that Tiggy has worked with that she says are incredibly rewarding - perhaps more so than the ones she has turned down, because she knows they are the right fit for her. The classic linen trouser brand Tom’s Trunks is one (I even bought my first pair of Tom’s Trunks on Depop years ago!), and she giggles and says that she wouldn’t be able to make it through an interview about sustainable fashion without mentioning Patcha, which makes one-of-a-kind upcycled pieces. I’ve had my eye on one of their bags made from cowboy boots destined for landfill for a while. I’m taking this as my sign to go for it.
The creator industry is a tricky one to navigate even when one has less boundaries placed upon them than Tiggy has placed upon herself, so for her to be sticking it out and continuing to ground herself in sustainability deserves its flowers (especially considering the amount some of these brands are paying their creators!). Tiggy is testament to the idea that hard work and good morals pay off, and the relationships she’s been able to nurture from this proves that sustainability adds more to your life than you have to give up.
For the rest of the day, Tiggy is planning to edit and film some more videos (which you can watch here) and I’ll be watching soap-cutting videos and figuring out the cost-per-wear of a bag made from cowboy boots…