Why is there an elephant in my wardrobe?

Starting conversations about a secondhand fashion future...

I can’t remember when I first noticed that there was an elephant in my wardrobe. I was so busy stuffing it full of clothes that she could have been there for months before I spotted her. Perhaps years? But I could feel her looming presence in the guilty, uncomfortable feeling I got each time I opened the wardrobe doors. And I felt her reproachful stare as I shoved in another ‘must have’ something that I simply couldn’t live without but might never actually wear.

Eventually, once we started to chat, I realised that my way of life, and all that shopping, is diminishing her habitat. That ‘throwaway’ consumption is robbing her of ancient migratory routes and long held wisdoms.

She tells me that she may soon be the only kind of elephant I can see. Did you know that African elephant populations have fallen by 95% in the last 100 years.

It’s so sad.

The elephant now living in my wardrobe warns that our unconscious drift into hyper consumerism over the last fifty years is totally unsustainable. She politely points out that I cannot keep clicking ‘add to bag’ with impunity without being complicit in wreaking our beautiful planet. She tells me that, here in the UK, we now buy four times as many items of clothing as we did at the start of this century and that according to Oxfam we send a shocking 13 million tonnes of clothes to landfill or incineration each and every week. And that we, humans, are using up the planets resources almost twice as fast as they can regenerate themselves.

According to the World Wildlife Fund global populations of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles have fallen by 69% in my lifetime. I find that fact terrifying, heart breaking and motivating.

Enough is enough. Each time I pop on my favourite leopard print frock I am reminded that there are less than 100 adult Amur leopards left living in the wild.

My new friend, the elephant, is a stark reminder that even if you, or I, think that we may be ok with there being no more elephants, or gorillas, or bees, or coral reefs, or maybe even no more blue skies, we cannot know what other havoc we’re wreaking on the biosphere or the future for generations to come.

It’s unsustainable.

As I could no longer ignore my omnipresent elephant, I started to ponder how had it come to this. How had I come to feel that my own personal behaviour was hastening our journey towards a terrifying tipping point. How had I come to feel so uncomfortable about my passion for fashion?

I’ve loved clothes all my life. They are intrinsically woven into my life. My earliest memories are of watching my mum get dressed in a purple crochet dress that I still treasure. If we’ve met, I may not remember your name, but I will remember what you were wearing. If I liked it, I would have clocked it, tucked it away in my memory bank, used it as inspiration or even tried to track it down and buy it.

I’ve worked in fashion as a designer and creative director for over 30 years. For me, it was always a passion project, but over the last ten years I’ve become more and more disillusioned with the fashion industry.

I don’t understand the constant pressure to sell more and more stuff in a market that feels oversaturated. Trying to keep up with an incessant flow of new trends that we’re all supposed to know (and care) about isn’t fun anymore. Increasingly marketing is designed to target our insecurities and make us feel bad about ourselves. And it’s sad that ever decreasing prices combined with escalating levels of discounting have devalued clothes to the point that we use them and throw them away like takeaway coffee cups. The Ellen MacArthur foundation says many of our clothes end up in the bin in the same year they were made.

What’s the answer?

To be clear I’m not a climate expert. But in the last few years I have done a lot of reading and researching. And it seems to me that for us to have any hope of slowing down global warming in line with the Paris Climate Accord that many of us (me included), particularly here in the global north, need to start consuming a lot less.

And so in 2020 I started my instagram feed to face up to my own shopping addiction, challenge the idea of throwaway fashion and explore how the fashion industry, and my personal consumption, could become more sustainable.

It’s been quite a journey. I’ve met amazing people, rediscovered old friends and learnt a lot. I’ve also reduced my fashion shopping from around four or five things a month to just 12 pieces a year, purchased almost exclusively in the secondhand market and developed a much happier relationship with myself and what is hanging in my wardrobe.

I left my job, went back to college and have spent the last 18 months researching whether secondhand fashion and the burgeoning resale market are the solutions they’re cracked up to be.

I’m here to start conversations, share what I’m learning, learn from other people and investigate what a secondhand fashion future might look like.

Looking forward to talking to you.