What we're doing right
No new clothes for a year
1st February 2010
A London fashion writer's attempt to live without new jewelry or threads will catalyze creativity
A Silverton original: an old lab coat given new life and new meaning.
The author of an immaculately titled fashion blog, My Taste Is Better Than Yours, has launched a new project: No New Clothes For A Year. In Lily Silverton’s own words:
The reason behind my abstention is simple: I absolutely love clothing and fashion but I hate everything about the industry. I’m sick of buying badly made, poor quality items. I’m sick of seeing things I’ve just bought on other people. I’m sick of worrying about the ethical implications and environmental impact of my high-street consumerism. Finally, I’m sick of resenting all the items I’ve bought and never worn.
So she will hold off on all new clothes and shoes for a year (except underwear and socks) and will only buy “second-hand clothing and materials with which to make my own clothing”. In so doing she will contribute less to the million tonnes of textiles tossed into UK landfills every year and to crummy labour practices worldwide, such as exposure of cotton plantation workers to high levels of pesticides in developing nations (sometimes at levels so high the children suffer neurological impairment to the point that they are barely able to draw stick figures).
That much is obvious – but less apparent are the benefits she’ll reap herself:
… [Aside from the challenges] I’m quite excited about being forced to use my sewing skills, re-learning to knit (I know I used to know) and foraging in charity shops for the perfect dress (rather than casually picking up an identikit one in h&m).
Lord knows how much money she’ll save. Moreover, she’ll learn how to use parts of her brain she had forgotten about and rediscover her creativity. She’s highly original.
Recently she has gotten into shredding t-shirts – each one takes her hours.
Silverton in a Silverton original.
In the past two years she has crafted some of my most treasured possessions: a handmade turquoise pendant with rubies and pearls, knotted by hand.
A buttoned bracelet.
And – the fan favourite - a “pimped out lab coat with coat tails”, as per my request, to wear in my guerilla marketing role with Guerilla Science.
Ever seen a lab coat like this? Didn't think so.
Her creativity is catalyzing others to rediscover their own. My wife made me a matching hat for Christmas.
This points to an important but unappreciated truth: changing your lifestyle to reduce your environmental impact brings unexpected bonuses.
When Colin Beavan, author of No Impact Man (and the subject of a documentary of the same name) attempted to reduce his environmental impact to zero for a full year the process was difficult: living without electricity, refrigerated food or toilet paper wasn’t much fun, and invited sneers and scorn from right wing pundits across America, universally accusing him of smug self-importance.
But he and his wife reaped unexpected benefits: living without a television meant they read more, spent more time outdoors, and “became better parents.” Eating without take-out meant his wife had to learn to cook for the first time in her life – and, to their surprise, lowered her dangerously high blood levels of glucose. “If we had called the project ‘The Year My Wife Reversed Her Pre-Diabetic Condition’ would people have reacted the same way?” he asks.
The same goes for dozens of other choices: drive less, bike more, eat less meat? Save money, lose weight, improve health. Make your own clothes? Rediscover things you love to do and ways you used to think. Create some fantastic stuff while you’re at it.
Or, at the very least, when peak oil hits and we’re forced to live in a post-apocalyptic nightmare scenario without energy or comfort, forced to scavenge landfills for fuel, you’ll know how to make your own pimped out lab coat.
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