By Glwadys Beya and Amalie Meland
Delphine Chui is a London-based freelance journalist who has written for influential magazines such as Grazia, Cosmopolitan and Harpers Bazaar.
She was one of five panellists at the Fashion Reborn: Reuse and Rethink event at London Metropolitan University, part of their twice-annual Journalism Newsweek.
Delphine was chosen to participate as she does a lot of commercial work in partnership with fashion brands, and throughout the years has developed a strong interest in sustainability.
A holistic lifestyle
She says that she has always been holistic, starting with a vegetarian diet and eventually using only organic ingredients in her healthcare products.
Sustainability has made her more aware of using good fabrics, ones that are less harmful for the environment and better for the health and livelihood of the workers who toil away in the garment industry.
Indeed, she tries to find companies that do not use ingredients like pesticides on their clothes but it’s difficult, as brands sometimes practice “greenwashing”, and display a fake sustainable label.
As a result, avoiding fast fashion products, especially the ones that are made in China, has been a stand she has taken, and one that she advocates others take as well.
“Every pound that we spend is a vote,” she says.
Consumers are so used to paying a small amount of money for clothing that it makes it harder to tackle the issue, and the popularity of big fast fashion retailers doesn’t help.
Delphine adds that even though shopping wisely requires much more research and time, it makes her more mindful of the production process. She now buys fewer items, but those of better quality.
“If I want to pay something fairly, it will probably cost more,” she says.
Tackling loneliness
Delphine has other passions as well, and is the founder of CareDogs Charity, which aims to tackle loneliness and social isolation in the elderly community.
Always been a creative person, she loves writing and love sharing stories. But it got to a point where she wanted to be more face to face with people, be able to tell people’s stories that aren’t the ones in magazines.
She was so used to telling celebrity stories, and stories about high-profile people. But she wanted to tell stories for everyday people. This gave her the idea behind the CareDogs charity.
Perhaps having two pets that she loves – a dog and a cat – gives her a reason to go out daily and talk to people. “It’s such a community thing to have a pet.”
She realised, especially during Covid, that there are so many people that aren’t able to have pets themselves for a variety of reasons.
The charity’s focus is on older people is because Delphine knows there are older people that don’t have a good support network and that they often can be forgotten by society. Her grandparents didn’t live in the UK, but they had a good support network, and she wanted to ensure that others had that system in place as well.
CareDogs offers local dog befriending services within South London and helps facilitate senior dog adoptions nationwide, so everyone can experience the benefits of canine companionship.
For more information, see CareDogs.
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