Suffer for Fashion:

I have been thinking recently about how much money I have spent on clothes and accessories in my relatively short life span (twenty-six years). When you think about it – I’ve really only been clothing myself since I was about 15 – making it only 12 years of independent shopping that we are talking about. In that time, I have spent A LOT of money on A LOT of clothes. The tragic thing is – I don’t really have a great deal to show for it.

 

The oldest Item that I have in my wardrobe is a blue raglan sleeved T-shirt that I bought for maybe $5 at an Op Shop in my hometown. I sewed a bunch of fabric samples to the front in a grid-pattern one day, and it was automatically the best T-Shirt I have ever owned. I mean, this thing was OLD when I bought it. It is now ancient, and falling apart. I still wear it around the house – but the collar has come unstitched, it has passed beyond pilling into threadbare territory, and my yo-yo dieter’s body has stretched the fabric to a point of ridiculousness.
The rest of the clothes that I have in my wardrobe however, are generally between three-years and one-month old. By this I mean the time in which I have owned them.

It horrifies me, how disposeably I shop. I have bought clothes and loved them intensely for two weeks, and then given them away to charity. I have ruined perfectly good clothes with bleach or scissors just for the hell of it. I have been a slave to trends.

In recompense for this, and to assuage somewhat my guilty shopper’s conscience, I am undertaking the following Fashion Fast.

My Fashion Fast Rules:

• For one whole year I will give up shopping for clothes first-hand. All clothing, shoes and accessories I purchase will be pre-loved or second hand.
• I will publish a monthly summary of spending for that month, and spending for the year to date, on my Blog.
  
• During this time I will endeavour to alter, mend and update my clothes as necessary myself.
  
• While shopping second hand, as much as possible I will avoid labels that boast to be ‘Australian’ or ‘American’, but are in fact made in China or India.

 

My Fashion Fast exceptions:

• New underwear and/or socks
• Wedding attire for if any of my Peeps get hitched

This I pledge to the almighty interwebs and whomever of you out there is (thankfully) deluded enough to find interest in my Blog: For 12-months I will not shop off the rack.

Xx