Looking for Tips on Clothing Connections

Even though the goal of this project was not to necessarily change my buying habits, but simply to make better (far better) informed purchases, a few months in I'm realizing how naive it was to think that making these connections was as as easy as wanting it. I've switched to almost exclusively locally grown produce and hardly any meat (because I cook for myself all the time now, and I basically just don't know how to cook meat). I buy all of my toiletries from the Coop, which means I have no need for corner bodegas and delis (with the exception of an occasional six-pack of Brooklyn Lager) or drug stores (with the exception of medicines, I'm not naive enough to think big pharma is going to welcome me into their factories and I can't wait a year for health care). And any new furniture or stuff for my apartment I build or reuse things I already have. Which I guess goes the same for clothing...

I started this project in early spring, when jeans and boots were fine everyday. It's now the apex of summer and I'm still wearing the boots. It's not okay. I've been chopping up old pants (including, yes, a pair of old jeans) to make a new crop of shorts for myself, but I haven't been so handy with "making" new shoes. And speaking of pants, between switching to a virtually vegetarian organic diet (and simultaneously taking up bicycling and swimming at the local Y) I've lost 15 pounds and none of my clothes fit me anymore.

I am looking for any tips or suggestions anyone might have for making connections within shoe/sneaker companies or clothing companies where I might buy myself a few new pairs of jeans (and maybe shorts!).