I spent the morning introducing a Chinese lady to the
mysteries of charity shopping, and ended up buying more than her. The thing with charity shops is, you never
know what you will find. You may start
the day with the determination to buy a sensible winter skirt, and end up with
half a dozen T-shirts instead. Or, like
me today, I was looking for a decent cardigan for my friend and ended up buying
several light weight spring style waistcoats, and a needle-cord Laura
Ashley/Victorian type dress. I had
eyeballed one very similar on Evil-bay recently, but the price-tag of £95
repelled me – the one I bought today needs a bit of work (the hem needs
re-sewing) but for £9 I am not complaining!
The great thing about charity shop bought clothes, aside from
the obvious advantage of them being cheap, is that they are USED. To be honest, brand new clothes are
uncomfortable and, well, a bit too shiny and innocent for me. They are rather like a haircut & blow-dry
at the hairdressers – you look like a different person afterwards, and more
often than not go straight home to wash your hair again and dry it in the slightly
inept way which results in your personal inimitable borderline kooky style.
New clothes need to be broken in. Until they have been washed a few times, and
acquired a few imperfections, and a certain patina, they feel like they don’t
quite belong to me. New clothes show one
up, like a perfectly decorated hotel room – being surrounded by perfection, one
looks out of place, being imperfect oneself.
For the same reason I resist the occasional urge to wallpaper the rooms
of my house; once the walls are perfect the imperfection of the floors will irritate
me, and once the floor has been done the old furniture, with their nicks and
scratches, will look shabby.
New clothes are also often stiff and scratchy. It is not an accident that the favourite
sweaters or cardigans or pair of trousers which we use as a sort of security
blanket, the garments we wear when we feel lonely or sick or vulnerable, are
invariably ancient. The clothes we wear
at home, when no one is looking, when the need to be comfortable is more
important than the need to look good, are always tried and trusted friends –
because, as we all know, the more we wash and wear a garment, the softer it
will become!
The tragedy is that a lot of clothes become not just softer
and more comfortable over time, but also seedier and more disreputable, and there
lurks in everyone’s life a certain Other who takes a dim view of the beloved garment. ‘Why don’t you just throw the ugly thing away?’
you hear them intone, or ‘Aren’t you ashamed to look like that?’ Sometimes they even take it upon themselves to
resolve the issue by throwing the offending item into the trash, leaving you to
frantically rummage through the communal garbage can to find your long-loved cardy
before the bin-men arrive! I cannot advise
strongly enough against taking this course of action. I have seen marriages dissolve and friendships
broken by it, and quite rightly so – if you think it acceptable to invade someone’s
emotional comfort zone by tossing out their favourite clothes you are not a fit
friend or lover!
The only acceptable course of action is to gift an alternative
garment to the disreputable dresser, one that ages gracefully and will look good
even after forty years of doughty service – Scottish cashmere comes to mind
again, obviously. Then sit back and hope
that your gift will be taken into the heart of the recipient and achieve Favourite
Garment status, while the previous Most Loved Item will quietly disappear.
Shopping in charity shops goes a long way towards owning long
lasting clothes that continue to look reputable, of course. Previous owners will have worn and washed their
clothes before they are given to a charity shop, so by the time they end up in your
wardrobe they will be well worn and comfortable and perfect for use. Also, while most of us are quite capable of wearing
disreputably looking clothes that we ourselves have worn into such a state, we are
unlikely to buy clothes that already look like that when we buy them. Whatever we buy in a charity shop will be Worn
& Good Looking which equals good quality, long lasting, clothes.
One hears a lot about young people complaining about their lot
in life and the hardships they have to bear, which are reputedly much greater
than those of previous generations. But
do they ever consider the debt of gratitude they owe to their forebears who
broke-in all those second-hand clothes they now pick up for a pittance at the
charity shops? If it wasn’t for the wrinklies
the young’uns would have to buy and wear brand new clothes, itchy and shiny and
ridiculously expensive! Be grateful, I say!
PS A friend of mine applied
a similar logic when he finally decided to get married, following many years of
hesitation. After much searching he
decided to romance a lady who had been divorced three times already, explaining
to me that she would be perfect for him.
‘Her previous three husbands will have smothered her spouse-altering predilections
and taken off the rough edges of her character,’ he explained to me. ‘She will know that she can’t change me, and
that she must allow me to have my little foibles!’ Hm. Yes.
Well. They have been married these last twenty years,
quite happily it seems. Still. I mean – is one supposed to be quite that practical?
Hm. Gotta think about that one….
