“I have nothing to wear” is not ever really 100% true now is it?! But it is something that I think to myself on a fairly regular basis.
Now that Autumn has arrived and the shops are full of the new season’s clothes it is very (very) tempting to go out and indulge in buying some new clothes. However this year I am very much aware of how damaging the fashion industry is to the environment and so I am therefore taking part in Oxfam’s current campaign to say no to new clothes for 30 days. #SecondHandSeptember.
According to Oxfam, the global textile industry is producing more greenhouse gas emissions than international aviation and shipping combined. Not to mention that it can take an estimated 20,000 litres of water to make just one pair of jeans and one t-shirt. To put this into perspective, it would take more than 13 years to drink this amount.
I am therefore in the process of sorting out my wardrobe to remind myself of what I already own. (The fact that I cannot actually fit anything else into my wardrobe should make it harder for me to honestly justify any new purchases!) The two main things that I am doing is to first remove any items that I will never wear again and either use the material for something else or donate it to the local charity shop and then I will be packing away all of my summer clothes in a suitcase under my bed so that I can easily see all of the autumn/winter clothes that I have so that I don’t just wear the same 5% of my wardrobe as I normally do.
I am sure that I can manage the 30 days and will definitely be trying to extend the challenge for as long as possible. It won’t be a complete ban forever but I will be making sure that I deliberate very hard before making a new purchase from now on.
This weekend was the first real test for me as we had a wonderful family wedding to attend. Normally I wouldn’t think twice about buying new outfits for such an exciting occasion, however I had to be honest with myself that it wasn’t actually necessary.
So on this occasion I happily chose to wear a dress, jacket and shoes that I already had in my wardrobe and I got the boys to wear their school trousers and school shoes. My eldest son also wore his white school shirt and we already had a children’s tie and bow tie. So all I ended up needing to find was a white shirt for my youngest and two little waistcoats.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find these second hand (even on Oxfam’s online shop) but was delighted to find all three items on sale in my local shops. Now, as I bought these items last month I have not technically failed the challenge in the first week?! However even if I had, it was for a very special (rare) occasion and considering how much I could have bought these 3 small items are a win in my eyes. We will no doubt be making use of the shirt and waistcoats again (school disco here we come) and then we will definitely pass them on for others to reuse when they have been outgrown.
My boys loved their outfits and it didn’t feel like a compromise at all, they couldn’t have looked any cuter!
If this is going to be a long term change in habit for me I will need to get much better at finding second hand clothes, be that in local charity shops or online. (I am hoping that there is a whole new second hand world out there that I don’t yet know about for my retail therapy!) For my first venture, I have just managed to order (through Facebook Marketplace) my first ever second hand dress for a fancy dress party next month so fingers crossed it fits!!!!