Dear Human of Planet Earth,
I’ve always been a wardrobe minimalist. I work out the minimal items of clothing I need for an area of my life, then acquire those and no more. I wear them for ages - till they cease to fit, or grow holes and fade. Then I retire them for home-use only.
So since fast fashion isn’t something I’m guilty of, I decided I’d carry on buying brand new good quality clothes from time to time. Because why not? And I’d recycle them eventually anyway.
Despite this, last year, to save money, I bought myself a few pieces of ‘pre-loved’ clothing from a local charity shop.
Note for my non-UK readers: Charity shops in the UK are non-profits run by volunteers re-selling donated stuff to help named charities with community causes. These causes range widely - supporting people with dementia or cancer; children with disabilities; the well-being of cats whose owners don’t have pet insurance; the British Heart Foundation; The Red Cross etc etc.
The truth was, on that first pre-loved clothing shopping expedition, I shopped in a hurry, visiting only one store and settling for what I could find. The shirts and trousers serve their purpose and I do wear them, but they don’t bring me joy. I don’t love them.
And so, this experience didn’t inspire me to make buying pre-loved clothes a standard part of my circular economy personal practice.
But something changed for me in recent months. What?
My son bought a jacket and a shirt with his birthday money, cool arty stuff from some hip designer. I was surprised to see a pre-loved tag. He’d bought good quality items he really loved from Vinted! I’d never even heard of Vinted before.
In my world, birthdays are when we treat ourselves. But my son belongs to a different generation where a treat doesn’t have to be something brand new. Mind you, the pre-loved bits and pieces he got are as good as new. Maybe their previous owner didn’t love them all that much.
On a bus ride home, a local XR rebel who lives a few streets from me, shared with me how much fun his wife and daughter have acquiring ‘new’ pre-loved clothes for their wardrobe!
I’m sure I frowned. That hadn’t been my experience.
But as you know, I hadn’t tried very hard.
For years I’d watch one of my friends dress her toddler in the most delightful, stylish ‘bits and pieces’, then proudly tell me she’d got them from the charity shop. Her trick was to go to the charity shops in the wealthier areas, where the ‘cast-offs’ are better!
Truth to tell, I had pride issues around buying my wardrobe basics from a charity shop.
On the other hand, I bring my children’s outgrown clothes to our local charity shops. When there I can’t resist scanning their bookshelves and picking up books already on my To Be Read list. Many of my daughter’s Jacqueline Wilson and David Walliams books come from those shelves - and might all return there to be re-sold and re-read in our wonderfully revolving circular economy!
Buying second-hand books seems practical. We typically read a book just once or twice anyway. Why not pay £1 or 50p for something that might cost £7.99 or £14.99 new?
Yet second-hand clothes for a wardrobe minimalist and fashion-resistant woman like me? There was no real appeal.
I’ll confess to two reasons:
I really enjoy choosing clothes I love. There’s less choice in a charity shop than on the high street.
I’m an impatient shopper and don’t care to spend time browsing around in shops. When choosing clothes for a photo shoot a few months ago, I visited just three online sites before ordering, ditching my original time-consuming plan to spend a day browsing and shopping on a Central London high street!
I associate shopping for clothes at the charity store with either being excessively frugal, or unable to buy new.
There! I’ve confessed it: in other words, my hesitation to buy pre-loved was partly a matter of pride.
But I had a few nudges that overcame my pride:
An increasing resolve to make more environmentally responsible decisions
Witnessing the enthusiasm and satisfaction other people get from buying pre-loved clothes
Family expenses creating pressure to spend less
And so, one day last month, when I was waiting for a specific shop to open its doors, I popped into three different charity stores …
…and emerged with nine items for about fifty pounds, that I really do enjoy wearing.
Never say never. Have you surprised yourself recently, with the environmentally friendly choices you find yourself making?
Tell us!
Something to think about: social norms and culture are not fixed. What was normal in our grandparents’ and parents’ times isn’t anymore. Everyone over 30 years old can perceive ways in which society’s changed since they were 15.
We’re social animals in an era of rapid change. Both consciously and subconsciously, we take our cues from each other. Your individual actions matter. My son, and the wife and daughter of the guy I was chatting with, whom I’ve never met, influenced me - nudged me, to use the popular concept of behavioural change - to get over my pride and buy pre-loved.
About New-ish Re-selling Apps you may or may not have ever heard of: Depop VS Vinted - Which Reselling App Is For You ?
Local Facebook and neighbourhood apps provide an even more environmentally friendly way of re-selling our stuff, or re-homing it for free, since there’s less energy expended in getting an item from one part of your neighbourhood to another. Whereas with Vinted you might be moving the too-tight jeans your in-laws gave you from Scotland to Wales, when it might be just what Karina down the road was looking for.
That said, we want options. So it’s all good. Try the most environmentally-friendly options as your first-line though.
Some thoughts on Economics. Is it GROWTH-GROWTH-GROWTH?
Let’s start with an accessible recommended read for Prime Minister Liz Truss:
The book’s been around for some years now, but to hear Liz Truss talk, you’d think she hasn’t thought seriously about economics since she wrote Britannia Unchained!
Which is a great pity, since economics is not physics or chemistry or biology: it’s not what we are but how we behave; it’s rooted in human behaviour, human psychology, human culture. As such it can, does and should change. Economics can be responsive. It isn’t an ideology. It isn’t a religion.
It should come as no surprise then, that Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics, says she’s agnostic about growth.
As for the Anti-Growth Coalition that UK Prime Minister Liz ‘Trump-Lite’ Truss referred to, as a proud member, I’ll tell you, it’s an Anti-Greed Coalition, and we’re very much in favour of sustainable growth!
With Love, while I sit in my ten-year-old knitwear sweater and equally old fleece dressing gown,
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Radical,
Croydon,
London,
That patch of earth known today as the United Kingdom
Lat +51.51 Long, -0.118
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