(Not) A Dedicated Follower of Fashion

We all wear clothes, right? But why do we have so many? Cavemen were lucky to have one animal skin to wear, and yet we have hundreds of items in our wardrobes. How many do we wear on a regular basis? I realise many billions are made every year in the fashion industry, but they're not getting many of my pounds.

I’d like to conduct a little experiment if I may?

Without looking down, tell yourself exactly what you are wearing today, from head to toe (you don’t need to worry about underwear). Did you manage that OK, or did your mind go blank and you had to glance down? If you’re still with me, now remember what you were wearing yesterday. How about what you had on last Sunday?

If you’ve passed that with flying colours, can you remember what your colleague or partner was wearing yesterday? Or the day before? Who cares?

Who actually remembers what anyone else wears anyway?

The point I’m trying to make is that some of us take great care and pride in our appearance, and some of us don’t (in space, no one can hear you scream - in the country no one can see what you’re wearing (and nobody cares) - that’s right, I can go around in the same mud-spattered, scruffy trackie bottoms and cardigan, and no one judges me!) But over and above all of this, however much care we do or don’t take, nobody else is actually noticing what you wear anyway. Unless you’re a ‘celebrity’ or genuinely famous person in the limelight every time you step out of your house. Unless it was hideous, badly fitting, highly revealing or ridiculous. Unless you make some hilarious or otherwise notable fashion faux pas (skirt got stuck in your knickers after a trip to the loo? Believe me no one will be remembering the pattern on your skirt), seriously not a single person is going to know what you were wearing yesterday or a week ago, or even at the last office function. When I worked in an office and there was some 'do' or casual evening out it used to drive me mad with all the 'What are you wearing?' questions. 'Clothes, I expect,' I would respond facetiously (and, I am aware, a little tritely) and yes, I generally tired* of the ‘going out to buy a new outfit especially for the (non-) occasion’. (*didn’t buy anything.)

The fashion industry is worth £26billion* to the UK, and provides 800,000 jobs - with dresses designed and coutured for teeny tiny ladies (when the average dress size in the UK is 16.) These designs are then tweaked, upsized, and mass-produced for the high street retailers. Magazines exist solely for women and men to stare at pictures of men and women in lovely, usually expensive, pieces of clothing. (*source: Evening Standard, 14 February 2014)

As anyone who knows me could tell you - I'm not a very girly-girl and I am certainly not into fashion full stop, let alone ‘the latest fashion’. I have been accused in the past of wearing a ‘Pauline Fowler cardigan’ (the once (un-)popular character on Eastenders). I have been accused of buying men’s clothing; it’s true I prefer I nice geometric pattern on a well-fitted jumper rather than a design of a bow or flowers.

However, I still have more clothes than I probably need. I used to have twelve feet of highly polished red wardrobes that filled one side of my bedroom, but no longer. I now have lots of boxes and bags and hampers full of clothes and about three feet of hanging space. I can get away with wearing the same outfits for days on end as long as I’m not going out anywhere in public. Dogs, horses, and family rarely judge you for the way you look. I won’t deny it’s lovely to refresh your regular wardrobe with the ‘oh, this old thing?’ item that you’ve literally dug out and given an airing, but do I really need all the clothes I have and hold onto?

I remember being full of admiration for Mickey Rourke’s character in 9 1/2 Weeks when I first saw the film. He opened his ‘closet’ door, and there they were, a row of white shirts, charcoal jackets and suit trousers, so he could wear the same outfit every day and not waste time having to choose. I envied him for this.

I know that Primark - or ‘Primarni’ as it’s popularly nicknamed - has made fashion extremely accessible, affordable, and ultimately disposable. Piles of clothes stacking up in everyone’s homes. Things that will be worn once. Things that may never be worn at all before being turfed out for a ‘charity shop donation’ clear-out. I am becoming increasingly ‘anti-consumerism’. I want to tell people to stop buying new stuff that you’ll have forgotten or discarded in two months. Nobody will remember the outfit you wore to the last party, even if there are Instagram and Facebook and SnapChat photos of it everywhere. I do realise the reasons people buy new clothing is purely to satisfy their own needs, to cheer themselves up, to impress, to pull, to show off, to be ‘one-up’ on a love rival or ex-, to look smart, win new jobs, show respect, and a myriad other reasons. I realise there is a global economic system dependent on it, even though at every level it is more than a little grubby. I’m glad that in these times of austerity people are returning to their sewing machines, making their own clothes, fixing and adapting old clothes. Living by the mantra of our grandparents of ‘make do and mend’.

I can’t sew for toffee, so I’ll keep on selling, giving away, and up-cycling the clothes I no longer need/want/fit. I’m going to resist buying new things for the sake of it. I’ll just keep on rummaging through my things and ‘rotating’ my wardrobe, so ‘this old thing’ can keep on resurfacing.