As well as not wanting to think about Spring clothes or diets, I don’t really want to go shopping in January. Cooking hearty food, wrapping up in warm layers and lighting fires, feels far more attractive than trawling the shops for yet more stuff I don’t really need. After the excessive consumption of Christmas it feels wrong to go shopping, unless it’s for something useful – and lets face it, who actually needs anything, apart from food?
One January a few years ago, I made a pledge not to buy any new clothes for a whole year, unless they actually wore out and I had to buy more. Of course nothing did and it was sheer boredom and the fact I love clothes (but not shopping) that made me give up after several months.
Frugality and conscious consumption are not terms we say too often in the 21st century, but I increasingly consider what I buy and why I buy it and when accompanying my teenage daughter on a shopping spree, I try to get her to think about new ways of putting outfits together and being creative with what she has, rather than simply buying more.
I genuinely think I was at my most creative and inspired when I was a fashion student with no money and nothing more than a sewing machine, some lengths of fabric and a few second hand shops to enable me to put an outfit together. So this weekend I will be mostly baking, making soup, sewing cushions from vintage fabric and making my outfit for a friends 80’s birthday party next weekend. Ra ra skirt anyone?
I’d rather a ra ra than a puffball any day ;)