Sitting in a creek at a festival on New Year’s Eve, I decided my resolution for the coming year would be that I would not buy any clothes. No new clothes. No second-hand clothes, either. No sales clothes, no op-shop clothes, no local, hand-made clothes. Not a cent on clothes for a whole year.
Why? you ask. Well that’s an interesting question, and one I’m not sure I know the full answer to, but I’ll try and muddle it out...
I have never been a fashionista. I don’t have a pressing need to keep up with the latest fashion, I don’t have an addiction to shopping and a sale rack does not set my heart a-flutter, so it’s not to curb an immoderate habit. I don’t have an excessive consumption of clothes, there are no clothes hiding in boxes in the attic and I can still close the doors to my wardrobe with a minimum of fuss. So I don’t need to go on a clothes diet. But it does make sense financially for me to cut back in as many ways as possible this year. Returning to full–time study and cutting back my hours in paid work, I’m not going to have much extra cash for spending on unnecessary clothes.
And that there’s the rub: unnecessary clothes. I have enough. I have enough to wear to work, enough to wear to play, enough that is suitable for uni, for a night on the town, to work in the garden and to lounge in the house. That is enough. I wont buy any more clothes this year, because I just don’t need them.
The inspiration for this decision came originally from an American artist named Alex Martin. In a performance artwork, Alex wore the same little brown dress for a year as a statement against the consumerism of society and fashion, and documents it in her blog, Little Brown Dress. Here, she talks about her reasons: “I challenged myself to reject the economic system that pushes over-consumption, and the bill of goods that has been sold, especially to women, about what makes a person good, attractive and interesting. Clothes are a big part of this image, and the expectation in time, effort, and financial investment is immense.”
Now, I’m not going to wear exactly the same thing for a whole year, but her reasons for doing so struck a chord with me, and so for a whole year, I’m just going to make do with what I have and buy no more.
I’m by no means the first to do this. In America, there are hundreds of women (and a few men) who’ve signed up for the Great American Apparel Diet to do exactly what I am doing: no new clothes for twelve months. Much closer to home, a local woman details her year without buying new clothes on the Transition Darebin blog.
And it almost goes without saying the many millions of people who do it all year, every year through extreme poverty. Like the women I lived and worked with in rural Kenya last year, for whom buying any clothes was a luxury; who had a few changes of day-wear, well worn from repeated hand-washing, and one immaculate twin-set in vibrantly coloured fabric for the occasions where they needed to looked their best. As I sit in a cafe in Fitzroy, or walk down Sydney road and fret about seeming un-hip or daggy and coveting the clothing I see around me, the memory of these African women is a humbling reminder of how little clothing a person truly needs.
I’m taking as my role-model in this endeavour the thrifty 1930s housewife: a woman who had few outfits, but always looked presentable, and made the best of the resources she had. Her clothing was made and laundered with great care, fabric was chosen for its durability and patterns for their enduring style. With these values firmly in mind, I set forth on my year with thrift, mindfulness and a sense of adventure!
No comments:
Post a Comment