My Clothes Don't Define Me

Recently I started feeling annoyed at the amount of time I have spent thinking about my clothes. How many hours I've wasted on Pinterest trying to build a blueprint for the look I really want. I've tried to use my wardrobe to express and to define my essential self, even when I didn't really know who that self was. It's been enjoyable at times, but at others deeply frustrating, as I've learned that clothes, on their own, don't make a personality. I've treated 'the wardrobe issue' as a problem to be solved before anything else. I'll write this book once I've sorted out the wardrobe issue. I'll be an artist once I look artsy enough. Everything the wrong way around, as I try to make my clothes speak for me, to define the limits of my character and interests with exactly the right garments.

Pinterest is a time eater and no mistake. Five more minutes quickly turns into an hour of blankly browsing through other people's faces and outfits. This is not the way I want to spend my life.

However, much to my surprise, I learned through Pinterest that I love what the kids are doing with fashion these days. If styles like fairy grunge, goblincore, cottagecore, adventurecore, earthcore and dark academia had been around when I was a confused ex-goth looking for new ways to express myself, I would have had such a good time trying all these out and rummaging through the charity shops for new pieces. The little gremlin voice in the back of my head (I call him Keith - go away, Keith) tells me I'm too old for goblincore, but I remind it that I've been into these aesthetics since 90s styles were 'in' the first time around. (I'm glad 90s clothes are back. I liked them then, I like them now. I just wish the bigger sizes would start making their way into second-hand shops. Mumma wants some baggy jeans please kids.)

When I was a teenager, there were really strongly drawn lines between subcultures and the mainstream culture. You were a 'chav' (or 'townies' as we called them where I grew up) or a goth or emo, and that was pretty much the entirety of your options. Whichever box you fitted into, you were supposed to hate everyone in the other. Nowadays, as far as I can see, the boundaries between what is mainstream and what is alternative seen to be much more fluid. There's a lot more scope for individual expression, and even in my small town I have noticed much more variety in everything from outfits to hair colour. Is fairy grunge alternative or mainstream? Do these distinctions still hold relevance?

I've spoken before about what it means nowadays to be 'alternative', which I think has changed a lot since I was young. I still have friends who feel very strongly about their allegiance to alternative subcultures (and one or two who refer to people outside their particular scene as 'normals', which makes me cringe), but I do wonder exactly how alternative it is to simply shop on different websites - Attitude instead of SHEIN, Killstar instead of New Look. I wonder if now, having radical politics, building a style from sustainable, ethical or second-hand clothing, or choosing a lifestyle such as veganism or going off-grid is perhaps more alternative, in this era of clothing abundance and tolerance for bright hair and body modifications, than choosing to belong to a subculture. How much are we actually defined by our clothes these days, now that most of us in the global North can buy anything from anywhere and adopt any style as fast as it can be shipped out to us? Is darning your socks a greater challenge to popular culture than wearing nothing but black?

(Brief tangent: Gothic Charm School, a blog I followed avidly back in the day and still enjoy, recently-ish touched on the white, pretty, thin homogeny that has become the image of goth on social media. I noticed this myself when I browsed #goth on Instagram for some outfit inspiration, and was both disappointed and unsettled by it. The blog post is here if you are interested, and I LOVED reading all the comments as well, being reminded of what it was about the goth scene that spoke to me in the first place and causes me to linger forevermore around the outskirts of all things dark and spooky.)

If the sheer vast size of the clothing industry has caused even alternative fashion to lose its meaning, why are we still so obsessed with fashion? Perhaps more so than ever before? Will supply and demand ever hit a ceiling, or will it keep forever growing until we abruptly discover we can't actually live on shoes? (Eating a pair of leather shoes will keep you alive for about a week, according to a book of facts I read once, but it'll be a horrible week, I'd imagine.)

At the other end of the spectrum, I have been increasingly alienated from my friends who enjoy wearing trendy clothes and keeping up with what's fashionable. I'm the awkward lurker in the group chat when the girls are discussing L'Oreal foundation and new dresses from SHEIN. Do I weigh in and talk about animal cruelty and sweatshop labour? Sometimes, yeah. And everyone says, yeah, wow, that's terrible, the atmosphere gets a bit stilted for a minute, and then we all go right back to doing what we were doing before. I don't want to constantly be a downer - that person who only pops up in the chat to tell you why you're wrong, yikes - but I also don't have anything much else to contribute. I was genuinely surprised at a friend's house when she received several parcels from Boohoo. In the little bubble I've created for myself since I started writing this blog, I'd kind of assumed that since we learned Boohoo use modern slavery to make their products, people would have just stopped shopping there.

After that visit, during which my friend tried on several stylish Boohoo dresses to choose an outfit for a wedding, I found I was really missing the particular feeling of cheap, abundant fashion. The haul. When you buy more than you need, just to try it, because it's so cheap. I used to run around Primark just throwing things into my basket. I didn't ever expect to miss that feeling, because I know full well that it's a signifier of exactly what's wrong with the fashion industry. But there I was anyway. Luckily I had a brainwave - I downloaded the second-hand shopping app Vinted, and spent an afternoon using up all my data browsing fast fashion that other people didn't want. I bought four items for £20 and felt sated.

This post has rambled around a lot, which is a not-inaccurate portrayal of how it feels in my head when I think about my wardrobe. I even have strange, nostalgia-tinged, longing dreams about dressing up in miniskirts and fishnets, my pre-baby body miraculously restored. I enjoy the ease of casual clothes, but miss the admiration from more complex, unusual looks. I also realised recently that I am more affected by body image issues than I thought, which is why I feel uncomfortable and awkward when I do dress up - I feel like I'm too chubby and un-pretty to be able to pull off those looks any more.

I really need to get my head together. I can see that I'm still giving clothes way too much importance, and trying to make them define me when they don't, and can't. That's not what they're for. 

Style vs. the World

Often, when I am thinking about clothing and style, I am thinking about me. What will my style be. What do I like. What will I wear. What will I buy.

Occasionally I am jolted out of this me-centric microcosm and I catch a glimpse of the macrocosm. I am reminded, again, that none of my choices exist alone, that I belong to the Earth, that 'what I do to the web, I do to myself' (to paraphrase Chief Si'ahl). The True Cost was a memorable incidence of this (and I still recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who wears clothes). More recently, I read Consumed by Aja Barber, and it was another much-needed reality check. 

It's not that I don't believe that we as individuals deserve nice clothes and great style. It's just that it's easy to get fixated on the nice, glossy, surface aspects of the fashion industry, and big business in general, and then we can kind of ignore the difficult truths that our purchases are often doing harm in the world, and that climate change is fairly likely to pull the rug out from under our comfortable existences in the next ten years or so.

Let's tackle the first aspect of this first. Consumed was not a comforting read for me as a white person. I knew that the fashion industry of the global North was both exploitative and extractive, but I'd never understood it in terms of colonialism before. It strongly reinforced, for me, that there is nothing whatsoever good about the fast fashion business model, and we need to stop supporting it and pumping our hard-earned money into it, stat.

There were sections of the book that kept me up at night. I'm not sure how exactly to describe what I was feeling, but I think the best term is horror. 

"The settlement of Old Fadama is where a lot of the unsold clothing from Accra ends up; it's home to 80,000 people and is built on top of dumped clothing. These people are becoming physically displaced by the clothing that is disenfranchising their way of life."

I just... I'm still processing that. People are living on top of our unwanted clothing. Accra, in Ghana, is home to Kantamanto Market, the biggest second-hand market in the world. Up to 90% of donations made to charity shops in the UK will eventually end up there, because there is so much. Even in Kantamanto much of this waste remains unsold. But the landfills are struggling to cope, so there is waste clothing in piles on street corners, on the beaches, in the sea... If you want to know what that looks like, click over here.

I am mortified that this is what we, collectively, as a society, have been doing to other people. 

Now, thinking about climate change. I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I find it quite difficult to reconcile the way we are currently living with the devastation that - worst case scenario - could be occurring in the next ten years if we don't radically alter our trajectory. I am aware that the first and worst hit by climate change will be the already-marginalised peoples of the South (where climate change is already happening, lest anyone still think this is a future possibility - no, climate crisis, climate deaths and climate refugees are a reality that is happening right now), but I'm going to couch this mainly in UK terms, as I'm writing this mainly thinking about people who are privileged like myself, looking at this mess from the same position as me, but also, like many of us, not actually looking at it, because it's complicated and scary. People who, like me, say, "Ah yes, climate change, very terrible, much sad," and then turn right back to our phones and feeds and carry on shopping.

I think I've gone over a lot of these points before, so I'll just recap some of the highlights, as I notice that a lot of my friends in the UK are still thinking of climate change as something that will affect, say, the Amazon rainforest, or a handful of ice caps - and yes, yes it will affect those things, and that would be tragedy enough in itself, but also the UK will be facing:

- Increasing flood risk

- Crop failure and failing fisheries (that's food shortages)

- Climate refugees and potential conflict (when those low-lying coastal regions are under water, people will be in competition for the remaining land and food)

- Increased risk of pandemics

- Increased risk of fires

- More storms and extreme heat

- London mostly underwater by 2050

All of those at once sounds fairly apocalyptic to me, and makes it very difficult to plan for retirement or my child's future. I'm doing my best, but when the signs point to 'business as usual spells environmental devastation' but everyone in charge is doing a good impression of an ostrich, I'm also looking quite seriously at moving to higher ground and learning how to function off-grid. Did everyone else start talking about who would be on their zombie apocalypse team when The Walking Dead came out? Time to start dusting off those survival plans, IMO. Build your communities now. Unless you trust Boris and the gang to save us all. (My husband is a mechanical engineer; my skills include spinning, weaving, archery, foraging and some basic herbal medicine. It's a start.)

So, while in the short term I'm thinking about accessories and trips to Glastonbury, the long term future is uncertain and hard to look at directly. Is anyone else experiencing this disconnect? 

A book I have found useful is Climate Cure: Heal Yourself to Heal the Planet by Jack Adam Weber, who is himself a climate refugee, having evacuated from wildfires in California and then lost everything to volcanic eruption in Hawai'i. Weber directly addresses the weird limbo we are currently in: "I've also let go of the expectation of living indefinitely in a comfortable and standard home, with money in the bank. We are all now more nomadic and vulnerable than we realise or might prefer. We cannot know when we will be stripped of all for which we've worked so hard."

Despite the title, which for me conjures visions of white light and sending positive thoughts, Climate Cure focuses on tackling eco-anxiety, engaging with climate breakdown and building resiliency, both on an individual and community level. Weber says, "Outer solutions remain only as effective as our passionate care to radically minimalise our personal lives so we 1) consume less, 2) free up time and energy to engage in regenerative acts, such as growing our own organic food and showing up to help one another, 3) demand top-down change from our governments, and 4) learn about climate crisis to support ourselves and others through it."

Books like Consumed and Climate Cure really help me keep things in perspective. It's not about how many pairs of shoes I have or what brands I buy. It's about de-growth; it's about what I can do if I'm not busy consuming, it's about doing my best in my lifetime to mitigate the damage that has been done. It's about learning new ways of living that are more viable within the parameters of our planet.

Change, Not Sacrifice

In late December, since my finances were going to hell in a handbasket for reasons largely beyond my control, I decided to stop tracking my daily spends for a while, as it seemed like beating myself up more than anything. Although I'd conceived of this as a temporary break whilst I waited for life to get back on an even keel, I found it quite difficult to get on board with, as though not writing down my purchases would trigger some kind of enormous supermarket sweep that I wouldn't be able to stop. It seemed like giving up.

And in many ways, I think I was giving something up. It had become an almost subconscious belief that if I could just sacrifice enough, my individual actions would counterbalance fossil fuels, banks, governments, the entire underpinnings of capitalist society. As if one person's abstinence from air-freighted asparagus might tip the system.

It isn't that I don't believe individual actions are necessary or valuable. Quite the opposite! I believe that we each need to do what we can in our own lives and in our communities to build resilience, protect and repair our ecosystems, vote with our wallets, and otherwise gently but firmly wrest power from the corporations that hold it. 

However, my family, friends and peace of mind were telling me that since I can't singlehandedly perform miracles, I had to stop looking for the amount of personal inconvenience that would magically fix the climate. I have this kind of romantic ideal of the person I'll be when one day I don't want to shop any more and can afford an organic veg box again, when I live in a fictional idealised community that has a food co-op and a tool library and I can get everywhere I need to go by foot or bike.

The thing is, that's not where I live now, nor is it the life I'm living. Nor does making myself feel guilty about every choice, purchase or action get me there any faster.

I don't really accept the prioritising of personal luxuries over global issues. I'm not going to be cranking the heating up in January so I don't have to wear a jumper or sit with a blanket. It's still my intention to reduce my meat and dairy consumption and try to avoid air-freighted foods. But I do want to feel generally happy and comfortable, so I did finally fill a Thrift+ bag with the clothes I don't wear (or that I force myself to wear) and sent it off. I also finally decided that I'm not doing a shopping ban this year, although my intention is still to reduce my overall spend, especially on clothing, and choose wisely. The way I describe this change in the privacy of my own head is, "I want to dress in a way that makes my heart happy," and I'm working towards that.

I'm also trying to accept that at the moment I am skint, and so I can't always afford - for example - the Ecover washing up liquid instead of the supermarket basic. (I hate knowing it's damaging to aquatic life every time I do the dishes, but I also need to eat. Instead of blaming individuals, I'm learning to blame a) the companies who make these things, and b) the system that makes it more expensive to not harm the planet and imagines that trickledown economics is a viable way to sustain a fair and just society.)

One change I will be making is a move away from Amazon. I know, ironic for an author whose book will be sold there, but I don't like their approach to either resources or people, and I feel there are better places to put my money than in the pockets of billionaires. Honestly, it's something I've been thinking about but putting off for ages now, because the selection is so vast and the prices are so cheap. One of my survey sites pays in Amazon vouchers, which I used as a shopping ban loophole for a time. When they temporarily changed their vouchers, I found myself having to admit that I didn't want to spend actual money on some of the things on my wishlist. Because things were so cheap and plentiful, I was beginning to make poor choices.

Equally, in the same way I don't buy clothes from fast fashion retailers any more, so too do I want to move away from the 'pile it high, sell it cheap' mentality with regards to books. There's still the library, book swaps, charity shops and - for a real treat, as it was when I was growing up - independent book sellers.

Buying an item of clothing has become a more special occasion for me now that I do it less often, and usually in person, from a small retailer, often combined with a visit to an interesting place or event. I'd like to see this same shift with regards to buying other things. It feels like an improvement to my life rather than a sacrifice.

A complete Amazon boycott would be difficult - an awful lot of sites are hosted through their web services, for example. But I can move my custom to other booksellers, at least. 

So my plan at the moment is to change and improve the way I shop and what I spend money on, rather than to stop shopping entirely. Is this a step backwards or forwards? I guess I won't know until I try.

Ethical Alternative Clothing

One thing that really surprised me when I started trying to shop more ethically was that the alternative clothing market, generally speaking, is no better than the rest of the fast fashion brigade. With the exception of a handful of notable brands, clothes marketed to consumers who want to stand out from wearers of 'mainstream' fashion are produced in the same environmentally unfriendly ways and in the same brutal conditions as other big-name companies. Hopefully this is an area where we will begin to see change, as we all become more aware of where and how our clothes are made, and as more and more consumers begin to speak up.

I must admit, I find it really ironic - and annoying - that clothes marketed towards the peace-loving hippie, the fiercely creative goth or the anti-capitalist punk are often produced in ways that are the antithesis of all those values. From ripping off indie designers and artists (Dollskill) to mass-produced punk clothing (what is the actual point?!), styles that were once proudly handmade or stood for something genuinely radical have become yet more fodder for the great consumption machine.

I kind of didn't get for a long time how radical were the advent of hippie and then punk fashion, but when I started to understand that before the sixties there was essentially one correct way for women (and men) to be attired within the boundaries of one's social class, defined for you right down to your hairstyle, make-up and undergarments, I began to see how shocking a statement the miniskirt and Mohawk really were. 

It seems to me that very little in fashion is genuinely shocking now (when I first dyed my hair blue, aged twelve, a lot of people pointed or gawked, which seems hard to imagine nowadays! Teenage me would have been very, very excited about the rainbow of make-up and hair colours that are now readily available on the high street), and the boundaries between what is 'mainstream' and what is 'alternative' seem to be getting blurry. Alternative, now, just seems to mean doing a different kind of consumption. You buy from Killstar instead of ASOS, Camden Market instead of Selfridges. But it's still about having a certain look, and about consuming, whereas back in the mists of time, those 'alternative' subcultural markers were often a political statement.

It's not that I think being different, or looking different, is only for activists and anarchists. But I find it interesting to note how clothing as a form of cultural shorthand has changed in just a couple of generations, and how pervasive is consumer culture that even the styles of sixties and seventies countercultural movements are now mass-produced.

However, it's not all negative. DIY fashion is still a thing, and there are hundreds, if not thousands of small makers and artisans selling their wares at markets up and down the country, as well as on eBay and Etsy, many of whom source their materials ethically and sustainably and strive to pay a fair wage to their workers. Of course, the second-hand market is a treasure trove for those seeking a more different or unusual look. I've found that since I started to follow bloggers like Sheila Ephemera and Vintage Vixen, I can more easily see potential amongst the charity shop rails. Vix's blog actually helped remind me of what I loved about clothes in the first place. As she says, "I don't follow fashion and if I look ridiculous so what? Not being noticed and blending in with the crowd is my idea of hell." This kind of individual self-expression, the skill and artistic eye required to develop a really unique look, is to my mind much more 'alternative', creative and meaningful than buying an entire outfit from Hell Bunny and calling it a day.

My personal idea of a way of dressing that is alternative in a meaningful way (rather than simply as visual code for Being Different - not a bad thing in itself, but less important to me now than it was ten years ago, and easily subsumed by the modern tidal wave of personal branding) would be something like that expressed by Nimue Brown in her post In Search of Greener Clothes. I've been thinking about this sort of thing as I move from trying not to shop at all to learning to shop mindfully and in moderation - I want to own and wear clothes that make me feel good, that make my heart happy, and I completely identify with Nimue's comment, "I have a horror of looking like the sort of person who has bought all their clothes from a supermarket." 

There's an excellent article about ethical goth clothing on the Domesticated Goth blog, which I recommend for further reading on this subject.

I generally try not to post shopping links on this blog, for what I think are fairly obvious reasons, but a handful of alternative ethical and/or sustainable brands I am generally happy to purchase from are:

Gringo

Wobble and Squeak

Wanderlust and Faeriedust

Celtic Fusion Design (although I'm getting towards the top end of their sizing, which is a bit of a shame)

Gippies range by GutsyGingers (their own designs - the name 'Gippies' being a blend of goth and hippie)

AltShop UK

MoonMaiden

I haven't personally purchased from these (yet), but my research also turned up the following:

Foxblood

Church of Sanctus

The Last Kult

Holy Clothing

Noctex

Mixed Messages, Self-Compassion and Sage Advice (or, Buy the Damn Teacups)

On my 'memories' on my phone's photo app, a picture from two years ago popped up, and I winced. On that day, I had got dressed quickly - as I often do - and I felt so uncomfortable when we ended up visiting a busy shopping centre. I was wearing a coat I didn't like, an ill-fitting, baggy pair of men's jeans, and a jumper that was too short. However, the main reason for my wince was that I still own all three items, and in fact have worn them all this week. Seeing the words "two years ago" on my app made me feel as though I'd been doing some kind of penance.

I showed Dai, explained to him how I'd felt in the outfit, and he gave me a long look. "You need to have a word with yourself."

He was right. Except, I'm not sure exactly what words I should be having! The opposite of the words I had to have with myself when I sat down with my bank statements in 2019 and identified how serious my overshopping habit had become? The problem there was that I still spent more than I wanted to on clothes in 2021 (more than in 2020, though I imagine that's the same for everyone) and for 2022 I really wanted to reduce my spend further (realistically, it's still high, though considerably less than 2019 levels).

How could I be spending more on clothes and yet still wearing items I knew I was less than keen on? I took a good hard look at my wardrobe, and it didn't take long to discover the issue. I had been buying more of the things I always tend to buy - T-shirts, accessories, funky trousers - and plumping up some areas that had become really sparse after baby-bearing body changes - skirts, dresses - and therefore I'd completely neglected the less fun, historically difficult, or simply expensive categories - jeans, coats, jumpers (and bras). Of course, that meant that every winter I was falling back on the same old less-than-ideal things.

At least I could understand what had happened! It's often easier to find T-shirts that I like than it is anything else, so I'm more often tempted by T-shirts than any other item! And buying jeans is always a mare, more so when you're concerned about pesticide use and water use and labour standards and so forth - trying to find jeans secondhand in a particular size, fit and colour, whilst accompanied by a toddler, isn't the easiest thing, and the prices from ethical, sustainable brands can often be prohibitive on my budget. So I'd just put it off. And put it off. And put it off. Because I didn't want to go to the effort of replacing something not-quite-right with something else not-quite-right, but couldn't see how else to proceed. Meanwhile my jeans were wearing out, and I was now down to one pair, which had lasted longest simply because they were my least flattering pair. With coats, the issue was simply: cost. Can I really justify replacing a serviceable coat, even if I don't like it?

Underpinning all of this is the fact that I've been avoiding getting rid of stuff, as I've often cleared things out and then wished I hadn't...! 

You may be thinking, wow, she's overthinking this. But we live in a culture that teaches us to buy, buy, buy, and not think about it at all.

When I've discussed my attempted shopping ban with others, I have often been told that I need to be kinder to myself. Most recently when Christmas shopping - one of my friends is a jewellery maker, so I was buying some gifts from her, and I really wanted a pair of teacup earrings! I explained I was trying not to buy things for myself, and she advised, "One thing I've learned from being sick [obviously I won't elaborate on anyone else's health issues] is that you have to show yourself some compassion." I translated this to: buy the damn teacups.

However, although self-compassion is important, I'm not convinced that my right to buy things is more important than the rights of garment workers to be paid a fair wage, or for communities to have clean air and water. I feel very aware that my wants, my purchases, don't exist in a vacuum. 

Writer and activist Aja Barber said on Instagram (responding to messages about affordable clothing being a human right), "Where do our human rights end and others begin in a world where the mainstream notion of achieving affordability currently looks like systems of exploitation?"

I think, now that I have written this all down in black and white, that it might be time for me to shop. I can't afford to replace everything all at once, and certainly not from new, so it's going to be a slow process, but that's as it should be, I believe. Otherwise I'll still be wearing the same coat two years from now, and two years after that, when instead I can sell it on whilst it's still in good condition and source one I actually like to wear. And I really can't go any longer without a couple more decent bras, sheesh!

Sheila has often given me sage advice, which I am going to do my best to follow: "Self Care Isn't Selfish. Lead by example to your kid(s) - take care of yourself and express yourself. You can do this without spending a ton of money, as you know, and I love that you're all about sustainability, but love every item you put on your body! If you don't love it, let it go," and, "You're the boss of you, Katrina. It's possible to shop ethically and ensure you donate stuff you don't need. A no-shop ban helps to make us more aware of how much we buy and can help tweak bad habits, but it's not a law. It's okay to shop and support brick-and-mortar businesses."

My Love Affair With Old Clothes

One of the biggest shifts in my thinking since I started making efforts to change the way I shop has been in the way I view clothes. Previously, like many people, I bought new clothes unthinkingly. I worked in a charity shop, so often bought secondhand, but I also trawled Topshop (RIP) in my lunch breaks, and as regular readers will know, shopped online on a daily (if not hourly) basis. Clothes came into my house and went out again to the charity shop like flotsam borne on the tides.

This last year, I've stopped buying fast fashion. It's something I'd considered before - and tried before - but I failed to resist the siren song of New Look, Zara and H&M. This year, for whatever reason, it just suddenly clicked, and all of a sudden fast fashion holds no more interest for me than a dictionary would for a bumblebee. 

Old clothes are just so much more interesting! Whether from charity shops, online resellers, or passed on from friends, you never know what you might find. I'm currently wearing a pair of mauve, navy and emerald brushed cotton trousers - St Michael - which I got in a charity shop for just £2. They are so unusual, and comfortable too.

I have a tendency to rescue the weird and unwanted from charity shops - a moth-eaten cardigan with a Fair Isle-ish pattern in an ugly colourway gets a few punk patches added and becomes a wardrobe favourite, warm and versatile. 

Charity shop cardigans mended with patches

Another source of old clothes is my own wardrobe. I have clothes that are coming up ten years old - most notably an orange Star Wars t-shirt with a pun about coffee (May the Froth Be With You), which I originally bought for 94p in a charity shop when I was about 21. It's been worn on pretty much a weekly basis for all those years and has become attractively weathered. It still goes with everything.

The longer I go without buying new, the more grateful I feel for what I have. I expected to feel bored with my older items, and sometimes I do 'rest' items for a bit, but at the moment every time I open my wardrobe I feel delighted!

I regret getting rid of an old favourite t-shirt of mine - it had a beautiful Ganesha design on it and was just the right length - when it became peppered with holes. It didn't occur to me then that I could mend the holes, or put a different coloured fabric underneath and make a feature of them. 

Customising clothes was an idea I first really became aware of in my goth years. As the goth scene developed out of punk in the late 70s and 80s, it came with a strong DIY ethic. Or perhaps it was more deconstruct-it-yourself, as rips, patches and safety pins were often strongly featured. Sadly, over the last few decades this handmade, creative ethos has been seen less in alternative fashion, with the rise of goth brands selling ready-made items to the black-clad masses (as seen particularly in the 90s with Hot Topic chain stores in the USA). Whilst more expensive than conventional fast fashion, the majority of these brands  - in my day some of the big names were the likes of Dead Threads, Hell Bunny, Poizen Industries, Phaze, Banned - are no more transparent about their supply chains and manufacturing processes than any of the stores on your local high street.

Whilst I certainly availed myself of these brands as a young gothling, I was always aware of a faction within the goth scene who sourced their clothes secondhand, customised and altered prosaic items of black clothing into something unique, or even made their own clothing from scratch. I didn't have the commitment then to adopt this ethos, although even I got handy with some black dye and safety pins from time to time.

Since moving on from the goth look, customising hadn't really had a place in my life. I was a bit wary about being judged for things looking 'handmade'. Funny - now I embrace it. I love that visible mending is becoming more popular, and as well as darning, patching and replacing buttons I'm looking to tackle bigger challenges. I have a much-loved dress that doesn't fit any more that I'm intending to make into a skirt. 

I don't worry much any more about whether I'm suitably alternative, or how to define my look, but I do love having a wardrobe that is totally unique. The only possible downside is that my growing tendency towards making things work means that I'm keeping things I would have previously let go of. This is better for the environment, but not brilliant for keeping my wardrobe under control! Especially since I'm working in a charity shop now - I'm trying really hard to keep my acquisition in check, but gosh, I really couldn't resist those checked trousers. I'm spending wayyyyy less on clothes these days, but not necessarily buying less!

I am away next week - normal service will be resumed upon my return!

The Bizarre World of Other People's Stuff

I really love other people's discarded stuff. I grew up wearing charity shop clothes, and generally still do. What you can find second-hand is generally much more interesting than what you can buy new, especially in this era of bland mass-produced fast fashion. 

It never ceases to amaze me what people throw away. I often think that we, as a society, have entirely lost our sense of perspective, of the value of things. We expect our new clothes to cost next to nothing - how can a T-shirt cost £1.50? The material to make it, the wages of the person who stitched it, the cost of shipping it halfway around the world to a store near you, let alone the livelihood of the farmer who grew the cotton or the weaver who formed the fabric, are not reflected in the price tag any more, as big stores sell individual items at a loss to achieve more sales and swell their overall profits (for the CEOs, naturally, not the workers actually producing the garments). 

But at the same time as we consumers hunt out our wear-me-once disposable bargains, those who are more affluent are also buying and disposing. I once worked in the rag bin at a recycling centre. Literally in the bin, which I don't think is allowed any more. It was a shipping container with open doors for people to throw in their bags of old clothing. My job was to go through that clothing by hand and rescue any that could be resold in the sales shed or on eBay. The remainder (all those £1.50 T-shirts) was exported to developing countries, to be sold on their markets, recycled into fire blankets and insulation, or - just as likely - end up in their landfills.

I was not paid money for this. Instead I was allowed to take away any clothes that I wanted, which I could then resell to make a living. If this was still allowed, I'd still be doing it, but, at least locally, there are now no more rag bin workers. The shipping container has been replaced by charity shop bins, which essentially perform the same function except the stock is sorted in a shop or warehouse instead of by unpaid workers crawling over precarious mountains of stuff. It wasn't the most well-regulated or ethical job, but I enjoyed it, I wore my protective gear religiously (needles and nappies abounded), and if I was doing it now I could make a mint, what with all the resale sites springing up such as Shpock, Vinted and Depop. I know it wasn't ideal and I can see that there was great potential for exploitation, but for me it worked - I set my own hours, I was never bored, and my own wardrobe was in great shape.

And the finds! Gucci shoes, unworn, still in their box with the eye-watering three figure price tag. Two pairs of New Rock boots (one pair of which I still have, twelve years later, and I can report they are still going strong). A Victorian top hat. Just thrown away!

It was the Gucci shoes I often thought of in later years. Who would buy something that expensive and throw it away? This was the tip, remember, not a charity shop. I couldn't comprehend that kind of waste. I've been on a week's holiday for less than the cost of those shoes.

I thought of them again when I was checking out a resale site I'd never heard of before, and came across the following:

Fifteen thousand pounds! For a skateboard!!! Who even are these people?! 

Truly, the inequity in our society is exemplified by what we can afford to discard.

 

Relapse or Realism?

At the beginning of March, I had a mini freak-out and totally muffed up my low-buy. I've been letting this news percolate for a while, so that I could try to work out how I feel about it. The initial spend, which started with lingerie and fancy chocs, could have been for hormonal reasons, I'm not one hundred per cent sure. I just felt a little glum, and frustrated that my self-imposed limits prohibited me from buying things like magazines and face masks without guilt. I'm twenty-nine, I found myself thinking, shouldn't I be able to buy a damn Fortean Times and a chocolate bar if I want to? (Not that chocolate was counted out under ban rules, but my new Sense of Frugal Duty made me feel bad for considering an UNNECESSARY purchase. It's entirely possible that I have some issues. Thanks for noticing.)

In case you're wondering, I'm super happy with all the items I bought, which had all been on my list of upcoming monthly purchases. I'm waiting for one more item to restock in my size, and then I intend buying that too, as I don't have a lot of summer-appropriate clothing. I didn't spend more than I could afford, either - hooray! (And after I bought the lingerie set, a wire came wriggling out of one of my last semi-decent-if-too-small bras, so I'm gonna go ahead and call that one a good buy.)

As much as I (mostly) enjoy having the structure of a low-buy challenge or shopping ban, and at first it seemed to be going really well, I'm starting to struggle now after nearly two years of self-imposed rules. The problems are firstly that it focuses the mind on all the things I'm NOT buying, and secondly this guilt developing around things that would be quite reasonable to purchase (like chocolate). I also have found myself thinking that more flexibility might be in order - I love the items I bought in Glastonbury in September - a patchwork jacket, tie dye dungarees and rainbow striped harem pants - and if I were to make a similar trip in future I would probably want to make purchases again, if something special caught my eye.

This last couple of years I've tried really hard to embrace anti-consumerism and simple living, but I keep tripping over my love of clothes, adornments and other little luxuries. This makes me feel quite disappointed, but it does seem to be in my nature. I can moderate it and choose not to make a purchase, but I can't seem to just stop being interested in my style, even when I feel convinced that it makes me shallow or silly.

I hope that now I've bought those things on my list I can make a clean break from browsing shopping sites, which is probably my most irritating and self-defeating habit. Going forward, I'm going to try to only buy things when necessary, because I'm happy with the amount of clothes that I have and don't want to keep piling on, and I'm going to prioritise physical shops (not chain stores or fast fashion! I mean small businesses, boutiques and charity shops) whenever possible. 

I know that I can indulge my enjoyment of dressing up without shopping for new things all the time, but persistently telling myself that I MUST NOT SHOP seems to be shooting myself in the foot a little. I'm tired of guilt and self-analysis and for feeling like a terrible person because I like sparkly nails and quirky jewellery and am not a combination of Swampy and a Buddhist monk. I had this kind of ideal eco version of me in my head for a while last year; I imagined myself barefoot and tan in worn jeans and a visibly mended T-shirt, no make-up, growing my own herbs and veg and keeping chickens. Not gonna lie, I still love that image - but that's all it is, an image. Real me would not like to part company with my blue hair extensions (they're clip-ins from Etsy), New Rock boots, and iridescent UFO earrings. Ideal eco me is great for sunny weekends in the garden, but it's the whole me, not just an idealised image, who has to go about in the world feeling good. Which is much easier when I'm embracing who I really am and what I really like. 

So my plan is, at least for a little while, to have no plan. I'm going to take a little bit of time to re-set. During that time I'm going to really embrace the things I have - read those books, play those CDs, wear those earrings, use those hair products! I try to do this anyway, but I'm going to try extra hard. I'm also going to refocus on the goals that I felt were most important when I first set out on the shopping ban - to be more present, especially with my son; to continue reducing my time online; and to take more time to be creative (other than writing blog posts, which has become my fallback spare time activity). I may also choose to read some books I've been eyeing up for a while that might remind me why it's important to reduce our consumption - books like Affluenza, Loved Clothes Last, Mend! and The Story of Stuff. 

Another train of thought I found myself boarding this month came about as I was reading a novel, The Dressmaker's Gift by Fiona Valpy. It's about three seamstresses working in a couture house during WWII, and it isn't at all the sort of thing I'd usually pick up (no ghosts, robots, or wizards), but it was lent to me and I found it fascinating. And it really reminded me that we have as a society completely changed how we treat our wardrobes - characters in the book used fabric scraps to create new gowns, treated everything with great care, even made wedding dresses out of parachute silk. Nowadays we buy a dress from Tesco, wear it twice and think nothing of discarding it!

I can't suddenly afford couture, but the book did remind me that caring about the way we present ourselves isn't just frivolous and doesn't just relate to 'fashion' as it's presented to us nowadays, a dizzying carousel of trends the advertisers want you to wear out your wallet keeping up with. But people used to spend a much higher proportion of their income on clothes, and treat them with great importance. (In Middle Egypt, fabric was literally currency.) Knowing how to mend, care for, even update your clothes would bestow pride, dignity, self-respect. We would have eked out their lives as long as possible. A new dress would have been exciting, important, savoured. 

Vintage clothing tells a story, whether it be a hand-stitched seam, a small repair, a scattering of beads added for a special occasion. The fact that clothing from one hundred years ago survives today in wearable condition tells us its quality, when I've had things from Topshop fall apart in my hands after barely a month. I now feel that I would like to focus more, when I do shop, on acquiring items that can tell stories. Either secondhand, vintage or made by individuals (this is why I like Etsy).  

Since I managed to purchase a few items without tipping back into overshopping and disaster, I'm hoping that I might now be able to go forward without specific rules, able to make an occasional thoughtful purchase without feeling like I'm letting the side down by failing to be the Queen of Frugality. I must admit, though, there's a part of me that feels like this is giving up, as though I'm giving myself carte blanche to go back to being a spendthrift. That's not my intention. I've just had enough of the feeling that I'm somehow cut off from the flow of normal life because I have to second-guess every purchase I think of making. Maybe I can get close to the present, focused, conscious, creative life that I want without imposing a total moratorium on new items?

Community vs. Consumption

Day 100 of the 2019 shopping ban - or what would have been - came and went. I consoled myself with the thought that I would have spent an awful lot more over the last three months had I not been putting my heart and soul into my challenge. It had been a shock to me how quickly I fell back into 24/7 browsing, shopping, and thinking about shopping. And I was astonished by how crap it made me feel - I was desperate to stop again. I didn't care if my clothes were unstylish, I would wear bin bags if that was what it took to leap back off the dizzying whirl of the consumer carousel. 

I stopped the clear out. It was making me worried and uncomfortable, wishing I'd left well enough alone. I was concerned about the time, money and effort it would take to replace what I was bagging up. I felt I was going too far in my need to reach a clean slate. And once again I was trying to create an image around myself instead of keeping in mind my true likes and dislikes, and my real life.

Three months of hard work, trashed in a few days! There had to be better ways of spending my time.

Shopped Out

Once I had some breathing space, it was time to tackle the new set of problems I had now made for myself, a matched pair. One: I had once again devastated my finances, and there was only one last lump sum of holiday pay on the horizon, at the end of the month. I was going to have to figure out how to stretch that money as far as it could possibly go.

Two: I had devastated my wardrobe. In the ruthlessness of my clearout, I had left myself next to nothing for daily life. It was all very well and good that these two party dresses and this winter blouse sparked joy, but what was I going to wear now?!

The second problem, after all that frenzied buying and discarding, turned out to be the easiest to fix. I set myself a £20 budget to hit the charity shops and replenish my naked closet. 

After the intensity and guilt of the previous fortnight, I was - finally - shopped out. I couldn't summon up the energy to browse every rail and compare every item to try to curate the perfect selection of items that "felt like me". I went to British Heart Foundation. I picked up every item in my approximate size from the £2 or less rail. I took them into the changing room, and I bought everything that fitted that I didn't hate. I repeated these actions the following week. 

It was far from being the perfect wardrobe, mismatched and full of oddities, but I was resolved, now, to stop giving the whole matter such goddamn importance. I was sick of repeating the same cycle and learning nothing. The whole experience of shopping online - with such queasy passion, such grasping desperation! - had reminded me of why I'd wanted to get off this ride in the first place. I'd felt totally out of control, and that frightened me. Much to my surprise, I hadn't enjoyed shopping at all.

The Generosity of Friends

For a short time I muddled through, doing an awful lot of laundry as my new "minimalist" wardrobe endured the daily deluge of baby food, milk, puke, and other things the bevy of well-dressed online influencers smiling benignly at their ethically produced ceramic mugs apparently weren't dealing with.

Then one day I was having a cuppa with a good friend, Bel, when I mentioned I was low on clothing options. Bel winced, laughed and said, "Well, I've just had a clearout. Let me bring you a bag of stuff over and see if there's anything you want."  I was delighted - even more so when she returned with an enormous shopping bag of lovely things. It wasn't all to my taste, but it cheered me up immensely to have some new outfit options - and for free!

Word soon spread amongst my social circle that the lunatic on a self-imposed shopping ban had compounded her personal torture by throwing out half her clothes. My mum, bless her, dug out from the depths of her cupboard a bag of things she'd been meaning to take to a charity shop, and kindly returned to me a warm coat I'd given her the previous winter because I thought it was unstylish. The designer replacement I'd bought did nothing to keep out the wind - not an issue in June, but a nightmare in January. When you can't solve your problems with spending, it's best to be prepared.

One friend, Alice, turned up with a bag of clothes and an expression of pity. I'm not sure if she thought I was a charity case or just a bit of an idiot. Bridesmaid Topaz turned up with an astonishing six binbags (SIX) for me to take my pick from. "I'm not a shopaholic," she explained. "This is what I left behind at my mum's house when I moved out. She's such a hoarder, she didn't want me to part with any of it. I've been working on her for ages! I haven't even seen some of this stuff in years. Do what you like with it."  

I was left with a bulging wardrobe (again), a sense of gratitude and great relief, and a new insight into the content of my friends ' closets. It seemed I wasn't the only one with a tendency to accumulate an untenable amount of stuff. One close friend had had an entire second bedroom devoted to rails of clothing, but had to scale back when her partner moved in. She is always beautifully dressed, but had dipped into her overdraft in order to fund her shopping habit. 

The ladies didn't want any of the excess clothing back, so as well as a full wardrobe I now had a full cupboard under the stairs. This time, rather than stress and overwhelm, my full wardrobe gave me only joy and a sense of abundance. I realised that the thousands of options online had only given me a sense of panic, of needing to keep up, of not-enough-ness. I had actually stopped browsing charity shops, prior to the ban, because I had come to feel that to make the exact right clothing choices and stop buying things I didn't wear, I needed the option to filter by size, brand or colour. I was overwhelmed by choices. Want jeans? Dark wash, acid wash, stone wash, sandblast, boyfriend, slim boyfriend, girlfriend, mom jean, skinny jean, super skinny, high waist, low rise, ripped, raw, ankle grazing, bootcut, flared, skate jean, balloon jean, cocoon, embroidered, slim fit, cigarette, stretch, jegging, bleached, cargo, frayed, button front, straight leg, cropped, distressed, crop flare, cuffed hem, pleated, pom-pom trim, patched, plastic knee windows... A smorgasbord of choices. (I did not make any of these up!)

And yet, I still couldn't seem to find exactly what I wanted - trend-driven fashion brands produce en masse, and their target market apparently wasn't a twenty-seven year old new mum with a round belly and boobs that require scaffolding. In fact, many brands and high street stores seemed to be aiming their wares at a target market of petite teenagers who don't need underwear or feel the cold.

Conversely, these new clothes of mine had been chosen from a very limited selection - they were not "perfect", or curated, or selected via a Pinterest infographic. But they brought colour, and variety, and I felt happy to have them. I also felt silly for not having thought of asking my friends and family for help sooner. Was I so locked into the consumer mindset that I had forgotten about community?

The Dark Side of "Retail Therapy"

I had also now seen first hand the sheer volume of clothes already at large in the world. Women and their overstuffed wardrobes are the butt of many a movie joke (Confessions of a Shopaholic, anyone?), but seeing the stress, financial pressure and even debt caused by overshopping, I wasn't laughing. 

Retail therapy is promoted to women as the cure for whatever ails us. I have bought new clothes to cheer up, to wind down, to reinvent myself, to affirm myself, to celebrate an achievement. It had become the norm for me to buy a new outfit for any given night out. When planning my wedding, I put "new dress for hen party" on my to do list without even thinking about it. It literally did not occur to me to wear something I already had. And I doubt that I'm alone in this. In fact, Metro reported in 2017 that one in six young people won't re-wear clothes they've been photographed in on social media; a survey of 2000 women cited by the Daily Mail found that an item of clothing is worn, on average, just seven times. During my ban, Dai overheard a Primark shop assistant telling her colleague that she replaces her jeans every six months, as she feels after that they are "worn out". 

With a culture that places so much emphasis on our appearance on the one hand, and treats clothing as a disposable commodity on the other, it was no major surprise that all my friends' wardrobes were bursting at the seams. 

Having worked in a charity shop, I had seen first hand a small portion of the millions of garments that are donated each year - many unworn. The shop I worked in received such a high volume of donations that we occasionally had to turn goods away, because we simply didn't have the physical space to take in any more! Yet despite the best efforts of staff and volunteers, charity shops in the UK only sell around 10% of the clothing they are given. The rest - damaged or soiled items, but also unsold items in good condition - is sold to "rag traders", who generally ship it to third world countries. The second hand clothing industry is worth billions of pounds, but it is also saturated. Second hand western clothing is no longer a hot commodity; there is just too much of it. 

Our cast-offs are known in markets in Ghana as 'Dead White Man's Clothes', as Liz Ricketts reports on the Fashion Revolution blog, "When secondhand clothing started flooding into Ghana in the 1960s people assumed that the cheap imports had been the property of deceased foreigners, hence the name. The truth – that the clothing was simply excess that living consumers in the USA and Europe no longer wanted – was less than obvious." Kantamanto Market in Ghana is the largest second-hand clothing market in West Africa; 15 million items are unloaded there each week, and yet Liz Ricketts discovered that 40% of each clothing bale sent to Kantamanto becomes waste in landfill. Haiti is so flooded by second hand clothing imports that the local textile industry has suffered and many tailors have gone out of business. We are producing, buying, and disposing of so much excess clothing that even the developing world cannot make use of it. 

Off the Wagon

Reviewing my holiday photos from the Isle of Wight, I noticed that my bikini was not providing me quite as much coverage up top as I needed - one thing on the beach, another thing entirely in the family pool at the leisure centre. So I allowed myself a ban waiver to purchase a swimsuit, with the proviso that it be ethically sourced (The True Cost still vivid in my mind's eye). 

I ordered a lovely pink and purple paisley swimsuit from vintage store Beyond Retro, and when it arrived I could not have been more happy with it. I think I appreciated it more because I bought it to fulfil a legitimate need, and because it was second-hand I didn't need to go through the exhausting, irritating faff of browsing and comparing 9,000 options. And although it was second-hand, I somehow felt it was more "me" than a generic piece from Primark or H&M. 

If only that had been my only ban break for August '19. 

Splurging

In hindsight, it's hard to pinpoint a single trigger. I remember that we went on our annual pilgrimage to beautiful Pembrokeshire, and the deep dismay I felt discovering that our cottage, once a place of retreat and renewal, now boasted Wi-Fi. I felt unable to ignore it, despite encouragement to do so from Dai and his dad, and found myself furtively checking emails before bed and scrolling through Pinterest in the bathroom. I was no longer present. I was checking out.

On our day trips to local beauty spots and seaside villages, my tendency towards comparison went into overdrive. I watched other women constantly, my chest aching with jealousy. I hated my clothes again. I felt old, frumpy, fat. I started sneaking off to the loo and browsing ASOS, Office, H&M, looking for the next fix, the "perfect" item that would pull together my magpie wardrobe. Deep down I knew that the only thing that needed pulling together was me. My compulsion to shop, my fixation on my appearance as all-important, soured my mood and cast a pall over time in an idyllic place with my son and fiance.

Returning home, I couldn't shake off those feelings. One afternoon, watching a makeover show on Netflix, I found myself almost in tears as the stylist encouraged her victims to express themselves creatively with their clothing, an outlet that no longer seemed to serve me.

One o'clock the following morning I started shopping. It began with an £8 dress in the Beyond Retro sale. 

Then an £18 Glossier lipstick. 

Then four pairs of jeans from Topshop.

And just like that, I was off the wagon. 

The next two weeks passed in a sickly blur. 

A package from Zara. A package from H&M.

Guilt, frustration, confusion, anger, disappointment. More guilt.

A package from Pull & Bear. A package from ASOS.

Pinterest, fashion blogs, perfect women, perfect lives.

Nights spent scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Trying to picture that item, this item, on me, in my life. Squelching concerns about waste, about ethics - I can't explain why it felt so urgent, so desperate, why I felt clothes had the power to fix whatever it was I felt I was sorely lacking. Trying to decode the bizarre photography on the Zara website (SERIOUSLY! I hate to ruin my own pathos here, but look at the bollocks they are trying to sell clothes with! You will die laughing). Days spent taking too-small jeans and too-bright dresses and camel toe jumpsuits back to the post office. I could feel myself becoming more irritable by the day, distracted, distressed by this apparent inability to dress myself.

Worse, I decided I needed to jettison some of these clothes I supposedly hated so much, and perhaps - hopefully - some of these stifling emotions along with them. Before I knew it my wardrobe was rattling with empty hangers. I had achieved the minimalist dream, the capsule wardrobe.

Sparking Joy

Despite three house moves over the course of the previous year, and what I thought was a fairly comprehensive clearout each time, I still had a pretty enormous wardrobe. I'd even applied the full Marie Kondo treatment, piling up all the items from each category and sorting through them all (it took me over a fortnight to clear the book pile). But because I had still been continually, mindlessly shopping, I could still barely move for clothes. 

After reading Cait Flanders's blog (many previous posts now deleted) and learning about her super-minimalist 28-item wardrobe, a desire for a Pinterest-friendly, effortlessly curated closet kicked into high gear, and I resolved to clear everything out of my wardrobe that was only so-so, and keep only the things I really loved. I read Anuschka Rees's blog top to bottom, put things into bags and towed them straight down to the Salvation Army clothing bank. Its metal jaws closed with a creak and a bang on a bizarre variety of things: an alarming amount of expensive shoes that hurt my feet, a T-shirt from a metal gig in Birmingham I spent the next eighteen months wishing I had back, miniskirts from Topshop that looked fine at 25 but suddenly mildly embarrassing at 27, bras that stood no chance of ever fitting again post-baby, approximately a thousand geeky slogan t-shirts that I abruptly deemed unflattering.

I expected the result to be an airy sense of weightlessness, an ease of getting dressed, a feeling of smug satisfaction. Instead I felt bored. My wardrobe may have been streamlined, all my choices now flattering, but I missed the sense of possibility. This probably sounds a bit nuts, but I missed the opportunity to be less-than-tasteful. For me, I discovered, getting dressed was about more than looking pretty. Some days, I loved a worn, oversized t-shirt and old jeans. I didn't always WANT to be stylish - or flattering. I missed a little chaos. My closet felt tired and colourless, and with a sinking heart, I realised that - once again - I had simply been wasteful. I wasn't Cait Flanders - when would I learn that I couldn't become myself by emulating other people?

My clearout did at least prove to me that, in shopping my way to a new persona via Pinterest, I had been buying the wrong things. Most of what I donated was two-a-penny; meaningless; pieces bought to fill a generic "this is what your wardrobe is missing" list - tailored black trousers, a classic beige trench coat in garbadine (never polyester; heaven forbid). But those things weren't me at all. 

One thing I was learning during the ban was how to tell what I actually liked - not what I thought I should wear, or what would improve me, or what I'd wear if I was a slightly different version of myself, or would have really loved five years ago. I must have read the advice to not buy anything you don't really love dozens and dozens of times, but it had never really sunk in - or else I was so overcome by the buying urge that "really love" was no longer objective. I could convince myself that I "really loved" pretty much anything, and come up with umpteen apparently sensible justifications for owning it, only to realise the truth of the matter once said item was hanging in the wardrobe emanating guilt and vague discomfort.

But now I really, genuinely had nothing to wear - and I couldn't shop. A dilemma, if ever there was one.

I was back where I had started. Stressed, anxious, and broke. I felt like I was treading water, gasping for breath. I was crippled with tension headaches and short-tempered with my son. I felt paralysed, unable to find and purchase the secret keys to my true self, the answer to the question that rattled around my head day and night: what kind of woman am I?

I had to take a breath. I had to find some air. I turned back to my journal, flipped through the pages, and remembered the sense of possibility and hope I had felt when I started to look at things through the lens of frugality and learn about sustainability. I had touched the edge of a new way of living, where how I might present myself was the least important thing about me. Where creativity and self-expression did not rely on what I chose to buy but who I chose to be. 

Slowly, I felt calmness returning. I pushed aside the endless questions and doubts about my appearance, the stream of comparisons and envy, and did my damnedest to focus on other things. 

 "When a woman says, 'I have nothing to wear!', what she really means is, 'There's nothing here for who I'm supposed to be today." - Caitlin Moran

January Accountability

So how have I been doing with my low-buy year so far? I've actually been finding it much easier - one "allowed" purchase this month seemed to function as a release valve, so that need to buy didn't feel so urgent. It also served to make me think really hard about that one purchase - I wanted something that would bring value for the whole month or even longer, and I didn't want to experience anticlimax or buyer's remorse.

I finished sorting through my clothes, as per my year of being myself, and although I donated a bag full to Re-Fashion, and a couple of bags of damaged and worn items were taken to the textile recycle bank, I still had a LOT of clothes and couldn't see that adding to the pile would bring me any real pleasure. Likewise, after Christmas and my birthday I was all set for books, cosmetics, and all my other usual 'go-to' categories for frivolous purchasing.

But there was one thing that came immediately to mind that I'd been contemplating for a while, and although it wasn't a necessary purchase in any sense, I felt strongly that it would bring me great value - I bought a year's subscription to my favourite magazine, Enchanted Living. 

What amazed me was that I then didn't feel tempted by other items! I could think of my subscription, look forward to it arriving, and I knew that it would give me more joy and entertainment than anything else on offer.

This month also marked a year since I last used Facebook! Amazingly, considering I once treated it as an essential part of modern life, I haven't missed it. Nor do I feel I've missed out on anything because of it. If anything, I feel my friendships have benefitted as I've actually had to take the time to message people - or even phone them - to stay in touch (under normal circumstances I'd say 'meet up', but COVID and lockdowns have been against me there). It's been a relief not to have Facebook - it's such a time eater, and for the one time you find something worthwhile in your first ten minutes of scrolling, there are dozens of occasions when the content is boring, annoying, infuriating or depressing. So no, I won't be going back.

It's also over 100 days since I last logged in to Instagram, AND I'm a couple of weeks clear of Pinterest and GoodReads as well. It's not that I think these platforms are bad in themselves, but they certainly don't do me any favours, and I wanted to have the chance to experience life without them and see if I found myself more present, calmer or more balanced, and so far that's a big fat yes on all counts.

Fast Fashion, Black Friday and "The True Cost"

I'm going to begin with my accountability this week, because last week's impulse dress purchase really annoyed me! Don't get me wrong, it's a gorgeous dress, and in many ways it was a 'sensible' purchase - secondhand, discounted, versatile - but one thing I have learned during the year and a half I've been doing this experiment is that the more rigidly I stick to my self-imposed rules, the more change and freedom I experience, mentally and emotionally.

Full disclosure, I did make two artist-supporting purchases this week, a considered decision I was financially comfortable to make (I did feel a big guilty twinge so had to go and re-read my own rules post to remind me that it was OK! Need to watch that guilt reflex - yes I want to stop overshopping, no I don't want to beat myself up about it or end up pathologically unable to buy myself things ever). I bought three hand-painted patches from a local lass to cover a hole in and generally spruce up a patterned vintage cardigan I bought in a charity shop last year, and an anti-capitalist mini-zine from another feminist artist (wow I'm so punk rock and stuff) for the princely sum of £1. So, not breaking my official rules, not breaking the bank, and actually mending my knackered cardigan. Everything cool here, accountability team?

This week, I was also lucky enough to get an advance review copy of Jill Chivers's book Shop Your Wardrobe. I read Jill's blog in its entirety during my early shopping ban attempt, and it kept me going - chatty in style, indomitable in spirit, and full of reflections and experiences in which I could recognise myself. I was hoping that her book would do the same for me this week, and perhaps help me get a grip on the monthly blips that are blighting my current attempts to stop shopping. I certainly enjoyed reading it - it was warm, and funny, and very reassuring. Even Jill had a ban break.

Perhaps a year without any shopping whatsoever is an unrealistic challenge. In many ways I worry about what I am giving up, and I often feel discomfort about what I might be missing out on. But I've had glimpses of a life without the urge to buy, buy, buy, and so I know that this constant wanting is just a product of my conditioning. I want to get to the other side of that, and see what it's like.

Fast Fashion's True Cost

During my first attempt at a shopping ban, I watched a documentary called The True Cost, which shows the damage caused to people and planet by Western society's addiction to cheap, fast fashion. (If you haven't watched it, I'd certainly recommend it.) In silence as the credits rolled, I felt the weight of all the clothes I had bought and never worn and given to charity shops, the impulse buys, the shopping sprees, the sale 'bargains', the piles of clothes on my bedroom floor, trampled and unappreciated.

For so many years I had bought unthinkingly, never stopping to consider where my clothes had come from, whose hands had cut the cloth and stitched the seams. I knew about sweatshops, of course, we all do - it's an uncomfortable truth we dance around and ignore as we pile clothes into our baskets in Zara and H&M. We are proud of our bargains. We think we are savvy shoppers. Meanwhile workers labour for a pittance in unsafe buildings and are gunned down in the streets protesting for fair pay.

My concerns about being the worst-dressed in my friend group, the problem of having too many clothes, seemed suddenly inutterably, pathetically first world and shallow. My shopping ban took on new meaning as I realised that my greed and wastefulness were contributing to this horrific state of affairs. In the face of Rana Plaza and the thousands of garment workers who died when the building collapsed, I sat mute, shocked and guilty. How could we be doing this to each other? In the name of fashion?! It was madness, that people were injured, dying, rivers poisoned, children enslaved, so that we in the West could continue to buy - and thoughtlessly dispose of - more cheap clothes and fleeting trends than we know what to do with. A truth we all live with and ignore, because it might be inconvenient. Because we might have to stop what we are doing. Because we might have to admit we don't really need another pair of pyjamas or jeans or cute summer dress or this season's colour handbag and actually we already have too much...

For a long time I had avoided looking at myself and my habits, at the impact of my actions. Now I had stopped avoiding the facts, I couldn't put my head back in the sand. It's too easy to gloss over where things come from, and although I'm only one person and I knew my shopping habits alone wouldn't change the world, I also knew I didn't want to be part of the problem and keep contributing during my lifetime to such a harmful industry.

My plan going forward - after the shopping ban - had been to try to save money by buying clothes more cheaply. Now I don't think I could buy a brand new £12.99 dress without wondering which individual, less fortunate than myself, is carrying the real cost. Yes, I need to save money, but perhaps the best way to do that is to just not buy so damn much and to start taking better care of what I already have. 

Black Friday

On a related note, tomorrow is of course Black Friday, when millions of people annually trample each other, break the internet, and actually kill each other to spaff billions of pounds on things they don't need, want, or have room for, largely because those who profit from it decreed it should be so.

Obviously I will not be spending money on Black Friday, but I do encourage my non-masochistic-shopping-ban-doing friends to join me in turning up our collective nose at this orgy of greed and consumerism. Fashion Revolution reminds us "it would take a major fashion CEO just four days to earn what a female garment worker makes in her lifetime". Please, let's stop encouraging this culture of exploitation. Together we can hit them where it hurts - in the wallet.