Where Did You Get That Hat, Where Did You Get That Style?

I've just become an ambassador for the charity Dress for Success, which provides professional clothing, interview training and a support network to disadvantaged women getting back into the workforce. The aim is to help the women believe in their own ability to succeed, build up their practical and intrinsic resources and equip them for the job or career attainment process. One in every two of the women Dress for Success supports in those ways gets the job they have gone for. The way these women are encouraged to dress is a major component of that self belief, and it’s the area I am assisting with, in requesting and accepting good work clothing on behalf of Dress for Success, and ensuring they receive it.  My involvement has prompted me to share something that is dear to my heart about sustainability, and is linked to the issue of wanting to do one’s human best with very limited resources.  

Many years ago, at university, a friend asked me to bunk off lectures for the afternoon to go shopping with her to find a dress for a party.  Two nanoseconds’ consideration between that and the total brain death otherwise known as a riveting afternoon of statistics had me throwing my coat on, stashing my folder into my rucksack, and heading for the door. To this day, she laughs at how little persuading it took and how fast she had to run after me to the bus stop, even though she is fully aware of my horror of all things numerical, and that virtually anything would have served as a good enough reason to swerve “stats”. Little did either of us know at the time, that opportunity would change my entire perspective on shopping for clothes.

Most of us have a friend who can look great in a bin bag; tall, slender, with a depressing list of genetic enhancements that we've missed out on ourselves by a country mile, but so nice with it that we just can’t begrudge her stunningness in any way, shape or form.  My friend is quirky, sartorially perfect, and unbelievably kind, and she never buys a scrap of brand new clothing.  After an unexpectedly hilarious afternoon in charity shops, that I look back on as one of the best of my life, we decided to take the next day off lectures too (and a statistics tutorial!), and go back for more. It’s probably the reason why I scraped through stats with a barely respectable C, but that’s another, far less interesting story. By the end of that day and a half, my friend had not only bought a dress to die for, for her party, but she had radically transformed my attitude to style.  Looking back, and thinking about my leggings, slouch jumpers and Doc Martin boots, I probably needed it.

I already had a hankering for retro clothing, having discovered that my less than conventional body-shape was quite well suited to the flared and fitted ‘50’s rock n rollers, but the genuine ones were becoming increasingly hard to find.  Getting creative wasn't a bad substitute however, so that is what we did.  It turned me into a passionate convert to recycled clothing to establish what most people describe as my unique sense of style.  To be fair, I've always been a bit of a “junkshop junkie” in any case, a trait I inherited from both parents who always loved a bargain.  They were never too busy to pop into the nearest second hand store to see what interesting things they could find, so the notion of recycled clothing wasn't that much of a leap for me. 

What WAS significant was having my mind opened to a whole new world of creative possibility.  Through one of the most fun processes I've ever experienced, I developed a complete attitudinal shift, and it turned me into a total recycled clothing convert. Nowadays, when passing a charity or retro shop. I simply have to go in for a quick nosey at what little nuggets of gorgeousness might lie waiting to be discovered among the racks of relics long outdated, and wacky accessories that only those unfortunate souls still stuck in hideous sartorial time warps could ever really love.  It’s interesting that the vast majority of people think, when you ask them, that buying stuff from charity shops is okay for a bad taste party but it’s the terminal road to style oblivion in any other, half-serious context.  The overall assumptions are that the clothes will be horrible, someone might recognise what they are wearing and where it came from, or the thought of wearing something an unknown person has once already worn is just too repulsive.   As one who is repeatedly tapped on the shoulder by random strangers who sometimes even feel compelled to cross the street to compliment me on what I’m wearing, I simply can’t agree. It might shock a lot of people to learn that probably 70% of the clothing in my wardrobe is something someone else has fallen out of love with, and rarely do I ever go anywhere without being complimented on what I’m wearing.  I've learned over the years to be a bit more responsible with clothing and what I spend on it.  Creative giggle-time in off-beat shops with like-minded friends has taught me what suits me, what colours work for me, and how to put things together to create an overall look that is somehow just inherently “me”.

Recycling has of course been one of the hottest trends in recent years and rightly so.  We make a significant contribution to the sustainability and healthy survival of our planet for future generations by responsibly using and re-using whatever we can.  When we think of recycling, we almost immediately think of the kerbside kind, where we separate our glass from our plastics, and scrape our leftover food into a different bin, to make it easy for the council to come and collect and take away and sort. We also think about compost heaps, the re-use of garden waste and harnessing the sun’s energy for solar heating.  Some people live off the grid and a few actually get paid for contributing to it by producing more energy than they need for themselves and selling it on to the suppliers.  It’s a wonderful thing, and it’s a shame that more of us can’t do it.

But how many people really take recycling any further than that? 

For people with limited means it’s a real challenge to sustain a love of nice, good quality things, or the fundamental human desire to do the best they can for themselves and their families on a half a shoestring budget.  For me, as a student with a tiny disposable piggy bank, I still wanted to dress nicely and have what I needed for my house, so I developed my fun-filled hobby and started taking a more serious trawling approach to “pre-loved” things.  I learned something fundamental in that process: there’s absolutely nothing wrong with appreciating something someone else has fallen out of love with.  Just because someone doesn't want that hot pink skirt anymore, doesn't mean it’s not still lovely, with a lot of fun and life left in it.  A simple wash and iron, a bit of creative vision, and you can transform something that really does deserve to be loved into a serious “popper” when you team it with a lime green cardi and a pair of matching shoes.  The human race is a fickle species. This season’s hottest handbag is next year’s charity shop bargain, and it helps you to acquire such lovely things that really suit your personality if you've never been a trend slave, following what’s “hot” in any given season.

Developing a unique, personal style is something I’d encourage every woman to do, because its sensible, it makes us feel fantastic, it reduces that “impulse-buy disaster” scenario that so many of us are all too familiar with, and it stops us from having wardrobes bulging with those "what the hell were we thinking?" things we spent good money on but haven’t worn for years and maybe never will again.  Fashion slavery is not only miserable and expensive; it actually takes the focus away from what’s really RIGHT for someone. Who’s impressed with a £1000 jacket, if it makes the wearer look like a Russian tree puller with arms like a sumo wrestler? Especially when a £25 designer cast-off from the Oxfam shop (who have recently done a great deal with M & S on charming things like their Per Una range, by the way) makes them look sensational, as if they did actually spend a grand on it.

In a post-recessional environment where cash is still in short supply for many people, getting creative and savvy about where the disposable income goes is critical for ensuring the school fees can be met, the mortgage and ever increasing utilities get paid on time, and there’s food on the table.  Those who can routinely afford designer wardrobes at face value are lucky indeed, and decent people begrudge them not, but the rest have to do what they can with what little they have.  The great thing is that although kitting ourselves and our families out beautifully on a budget is something of a challenge, there really are more options than simply buying from cheap chains who offer clothes that fade or fall apart after half a dozen washes as they leach dye and other chemicals into our waterways in the process, along with contributing to unnecessary, slow-decomposing landfill, and perpetuating the continued exploitation of the third world child labour that brings it to our shores.

Being responsible about recycling is vitally important to sustainability, and recycling clothing is another powerful weapon that we have at our disposal for sustaining and preserving what we already have for re-use.  There will always be people who simply couldn't bring themselves to wear what someone else has worn, and that is fine.  After all, someone needs to keep the fashion industry alive and kicking, but for those who are at least prepared to consider pre-loved opportunities (and some of them are truly golden!), having a rummage through the racks with a mate can be a real revelation, as well as lots of fun!  Remember too that not only does trying things on with an honest creative friend encourage us to create a unique style, it also supports worthwhile charities who need all the help they can get.  Charities are fully aware that people have largely pulled their belts in, and are increasingly wanting to get something  in return for their charitable giving, so most charities who run shops have exponentially raised their game in recent years to offer good, clean, quality, desirable product.  Much of what they have to offer is extraordinary and unique.  It’s a great opportunity go beyond the fascinating sorting of your glass from your plastics and take recycling to a whole new, fun and glamorous level!  It doesn't mean foregoing ever buying a lovely new frock again, because most of us love to do that.  It just means we don’t have to spend a fortune every single time, in order to look and feel fabulously glam and unique with our own special style.

Give it a go ... there’s nothing much to lose, and you might surprise yourself!

And if you  have something in your wardrobe that you've fallen out of love with, give someone else a chance to feel fab in it buy donating it to a worthy cause.  Please do contact me if you have anything suitable for Dress For Success.