The Journey

At the beginning of Lent I shared my challenge with zeal. I wanted to communicate what I was doing and why, and in seeking to demystify the whole experience I promised to answer anyone’s questions.

I was armed with responses to how I’m brushing my teeth (that’s for another blog post) or what I’ll do if I get ill, but some of the questions threw me. In fact, my boss had read my first couple of blog posts and responded with: “what’s with the no clothes buying?”

To be honest, I wasn’t too sure of the answer. I had just assumed that indulging in sartorial purchases whilst worrying about the amount of clignfilm in my fridge didn’t make sense. But she’s right, new clothes don’t mean items to landfill and I’m certainly not going to get hung up on the microscopic plastic tag attached to the labels.

So it got me thinking about me and clothes and waste and consumerism.

One of the reasons why I took on this challenge was that I wanted to discover more about the drivers that make my everyday life so waste intensive. Often it’s convenience or pressure to subscribe to social norms, but sometimes it’s just that I like buying new things.

I recently read a book called Consumer Detox by Mark Powley, which argues that we’d all live happier, richer and freer lives it we could dethrone the idol of consumerism. But breaking free all comes down to the journey, a journey which will look different for each of us:

‘I might have a weakness for fast food; you might not. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter where we’re starting from or what pace we’re travelling. What matters is the journey.’ Powley, p.28

I used to have a colleague who said he struggled not to be tempted by a food bargain. In any supermarket he would head straight to the reduced section and stock up on items covered in yellow labels, regardless of whether he was likely to eat them any time soon – as a penniless intern I recall getting several free meals courtesy of his impulse purchases.

For me this was bizarre. As a girl who dreads her weekly food shop and can barely spend more than twenty minutes in Lidl without coming close to a panic attack, the idea of willingly going to a supermarket for the promise of a half price ready meal is alien to me.

For my colleague his journey was about food, for me it’s clothes. I look back at my clothes consumption history of the last few years, and I’m staggered by what I’ve accumulated – from H&M sale rail t-shirts to ill-fitting hand me downs which I’ve convinced myself I’ll wear at some point.

Of course I’ll have the occasional clear out and take bags to a local charity shop, but this feels like a flawed solution: for one thing the second hand clothing market is already oversaturated and I often fear what I take to a charity shop won’t be sold there, but will end up being shipped to Ghana, or even sent to landfill; secondly it doesn’t get to the root of the problem of why I’m telling myself I need all these new things in the first place.

My wardrobe tells the story of a girl – a young woman – trying to find herself. I’ve bought new dresses imagining the person I’ll become when I’m wearing that dress. I’ve bought things to make me blend in and things to make stand out. All the time, I still end up being me.

I enjoy fashion and I don’t think it’s a bad thing. It’s just that now I’ve left my teenage years behind and feel more secure in myself, I’m able to wear things that are true to me and my style; basically these days I’m unlikely to buy a £2 t-shirt in a statement colour because it might make me across as quirky and confident.

But still, as look at my full wardrobe and overflowing drawers, it certainly doesn’t bring me inner peace. I see money wasted on things I don’t need, energy wasted trying to be someone I’m not, and resources wasted trying to shape someone’s identity. For me, this is my journey, and why I think 40 days without new clothes needs to be part of my Rubbish Free Lent.