Seven months On
7 months of not buying new have passed and it been better than I imagined it would be. Not buying new has been pretty easy, that’s not to say I haven’t had a few palpitations and yearnings when walking through John Lewis at sale time or “accidentally’ wandering into the Grenson shop in Jermyn Street or the day I visited the Anokhi shop in Mumbai, where everything was beautiful and so inexpensive
On reflection I should have suspended my resolve in Anokhi. It is a fairly ethical business https://www.anokhi.com/anokhi/about-us.html and I may never get to go there again. Alighting from the streets of west Mumbai from a Tuktuk, driven like a fairground ride and walking into Anokhi is like a representation of how India is, a place of stark contrasts. The streets, hot and dirty, so busy. Anokhi cool and clean and tranquil. Everywhere you look there are garments and homewares created from Anokhi’s distinctive hand block printed textiles. The three women working there were friendly and helpful and astonished when I told them I wasn’t buying anything new for myself and refused to believe that this was a reasonable way to behave. We bought lots of gifts to take home and my husband found a gorgeous shirt, which each time he wears he mutters that he should have bought more ( I told him to). After we had bought lots of delightful items, and with my resolve hanging by a thread, the lovely women persuaded me to try some things on, which I did. I found a dress that was so perfect, it wasn’t too long, the sleeves were the right length and it did up round my boobs. This doesn't often happen for me so what was I to do? My husband said he would buy it for me, as a present, and although this is sort of breaking one of my own rules it was nearly Christmas…..
To finish this story I just need to tell you that I didn’t get this dress on Christmas day and neither did any of the people we bought gifts for on our travels. When the time came to return to the uk we were in Goa and had to take a domestic flight back to Mumbai. To cut a long story short, when we arrived at Goa airport we realised we had left a bag behind in our room. We could not go back , it was a disaster and much swearing and crying (by me) occurred. I thought I would never see my lovely dress again. But I was wrong by new year a package had arrived with all our Indian goodies inside. Thank you to the lovely people at Ciarens http://ciarans.com
I still love shopping and I think even if I never bought new again I will always find pleasure in clothes. Although this started as a personal journey, I am aware of the serious side to our over consumption. The fashion industry is one of the worst offenders. we cannot continue to allow the maltreatment of workers around the world and the disastrous impact on the environment in the name of fashion. We all need to buy less, buy better and to reuse and repurpose what we already have. There has to be a massive change of culture and I have no answers.