I Bought No New Clothes In 2017 - Here's What I Learned And Why I Kept It A Secret

Hello everyone.  I hope you've had a lovely holiday and had time to catch your breath and relax a bit. And if you have a little time to spare I would like to share my first post of the year with you. I promise it's a goodun! I can't believe I actually managed to do it. I also can't believe I managed to keep it a secret for the whole year!

But I'm getting ahead of myself, let's start from the beginning.

It was Christmas time last year..no wait, 2016 (!!) and I was searching for bloggers who wrote about secondhand fashion. I found a fair few, but none matched what I was looking for. Many were old and abandoned blogs, some were rarely updated and others had started in an area that caught my eye, but had since moved on in another direction. This brought to mind the old chestnut "be the change you want to see". I mulled this over for a while and concluded that as most things in my wardrobe came straight out of a high street store, with the exception of one or two eBay finds, I couldn't be that change myself. 

That said, around the same time I had started buying and revamping second hand clothes from charity shops to sell in my Etsy shop. I loved the feeling of giving something old a new lease of life, making it a one of a kind item that someone else would love while also helping to keep it from landfill.
And that's when the idea of challenging myself not to buy any new clothing for a whole year came to me. It seemed like a no brainer given the new direction I was taking the shop in and also, how could I expect other people to embrace second hand fashion and not see it as icky if I wasn't doing it myself? But I doubted my willpower and was reluctant to make my intention public in case I ballsed up in the first month, yet I really wanted to give it a go. So I decided to jump in and just not mention it to anyone. 

The start was easy, which I had expected as it was new and shiny and the novelty was fresh.
Then in the spring we moved and I forgot all about it. And I mean completely. So completely in fact that the memory didn't return until Alessi went back to school in the autumn.
I can tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing when I remembered, (kitchen, knee deep in laundry) and to say I was angry at myself was an understatement and I realised in that moment just how much I had wanted to see it through.
Here comes the best bit though and where it gets interesting. As I cast my mind back to work out just how badly I'd fallen off the wagon, I was amazed to find that I hadn't. Not even a little bit! The swing from extreme anger and disappointment to elation was so sharp I gave myself mental whiplash.

I sat down and wrote out a list of all the new items of clothes I'd gained during that period. They were all second hand from eBay, bought in a charity shop or gifted to me by friends. Nothing had been new. I was over. the. moon. Not just because I had managed to stick to my challenge, but because I had managed to do so without even consciously thinking about it! That was back in September and for the next few weeks I basked in a smug glow of how easy I found this and how good it was and oh wasn't I doing well! And then I got a little carried away and started taking things further.

By this point I needed some new clothes. Not in an "oh I'm bored of my wardrobe, it needs updating" way, more in an "oh all my clothes have holes in them, but I will not buy myself anything else because I. AM. AWESOME!" kind of a way.
Ok that wasn't actually my inner dialogue, but with hindsight I feel that it should have been. I had become a self righteous wanker frankly. Luckily however, thanks to the whole keeping it a secret thing no one else had to endure this. So I continued to wear my tops and trousers with the holes and ignored the water getting into my boots and told myself that I was doing just fine. I kept reasoning that I could make do and mend, but in reality there just wasn't enough time.
And don't forget that the now funny, but then not so much irony to the whole thing was that I was putting in a lot of time and effort making pretty things for the shop while all of this was going on.

I can laugh now, in fact I am. But at the time I had started to grow quite resentful and I didn't even stop to ask myself why. In fact it wasn't until I thought about writing this post that I started to dig deeper in to how I felt about it all.
I realise now that I did take it too far towards the end. The challenge was to only buy secondhand, (with the exception of underwear and if necessary, shoes) not to stop buying clothes altogether.
That said I'm glad I did take it that far as I have learnt so much from the experience. Mainly that I won't be doing it again.

So to round up, here's what I learnt from the whole year.

1) Shopping in charity shops can be a nightmare if you aren't prepared

If I go in with no idea of what I'm looking for then more often than not I will come out with something I don't want or need. It might seem like a faff, but look in your wardrobe, have a think about what you need and then using that as a guide, go and look for it. DO NOT be afraid to leave empty handed. I do that now more often than not and am much happier as a result. It means that when I buy something, I really do like it and will want to wear it again and again.

2) Use changing rooms!

I'm speaking from bitter experience here. I hate changing in shops, but I've learnt the hard way that you need to know how an item feels when you're wearing it. Not just to make sure it fits, but to check out how it moves on your body, it's texture and simply how it looks on you as opposed to the hanger. Top tip: when trying on tops, jackets, dresses etc, always cross your arms over your chest, then raise them above your head. This pulls the fabric taught as you move and will tell you how comfortable the item will feel as you move about.

3) eBay can be a bit of a gamble

People aren't great at providing measurements, usually you just get a size, 10, 12, 14 etc. If you don't have a standard sized body (for example I'm petite and even petite sizes can be a little big on me) then you will need to dig a little deeper to find out if clothes will actually fit when you get them.
Also colours can be different than pictured and don't get me started on the amount of times I've received items that honk of perfume.

4) Buying new is not a crime

Probably my biggest take away from this whole experiment. In fact next year I will be buying new occasionally and already have a few things on my wish list. While I will continue to buy secondhand as my first preference, sometimes I will need something new and I feel that as long as I do so thoughtfully and use a bit of common sense it's fine.

5) You can have a lot of fun revamping secondhand clothes

This is another big lesson that I'm taking away from this whole experiment. At the start of the year I put so many things that I loved back on the rail just because it wasn't quite right size wise. I want to prioritise more time to work on my own wardrobe in 2018 so I will be able to alter anything that isn't quite right. I might even start posting some tutorials if there's a demand for it.

And there you have it. My not so dirty little secret is out and I'm already looking forward to more charity shop delving this year.

So what about you? What are your thoughts on buying secondhand? Do you find buying second hand icky or a lot of fun? Do let me know, you can find me over on Instagram or Twitter and I love a good chat.

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