Now, I do look at Instagram most days (probably too many!). But today my blog post is directly influenced (that Instafamous word) by Instagram. For a good while, I have been following a hashtag called #mystylephotochallenge It is all for fun but it brings together a whole community of interesting women. The wonderful organisers @mystylephotochallenge post a monthly list of the themes for each day and followers interpret the themes as they want. It can be fashion, humour, landscape, a film. Whatever you want to share. It is mostly fashion-related though and for this January/February, #mystylephotochallenge has linked with another hashtag #50daysofshoppingmywardrobe (organised by @joannewalker62)
The idea of shopping your wardrobe has been gaining much currency and there are a variety of hashtags, influencer, bloggers, whatever pushing the reduce, reuse, recycle agenda in fashion. Stacey Dooley's Fashion's Dirty Secrets BBC documentary* last year brought much needed impetus to the movement. Our desire for fast fashion, for cheap jeans, for the latest look is contributing big time to the environmental problems on our planet.
Yet - at the same time, we are supposed to be shopping to 'save the high street'. Shopping to help local retailers. Shopping to help our communities. I myself posted on Instagram last year about the decimation and under-investment in my home town's high street. Our out-of-town shopping centre has since also been severely affected. It is confusing. We don't want to lose the shops and yet it is quite clear that we all have too much stuff. We can all declutter as much as we like for spring but where is it all going to go? We like to think we can 'send it all to charity' or put on eBay or Depop. But how much is going to landfill? And won't we just fill the gaps in our cupboards?
I was whittering at a friend who has an independent shop about all this before Christmas. I think I was probably really annoying. Because they are living it, this weird and worrying juxtaposition. It is their livelihood. Whereas I am just confused by what to do and how this is going to pan out so was pondering out loud.
When I was a child, we still had mobile shops that came to our housing estate. Right into my teens, there was still the Alpine pop lorry that delivered drinks. Those were seen as innovations by the older generation though. Until I first went to France in 1981 I had never seen a hypermarket. The 'freezer centre' was amazing enough to us - potato croquette, anyone? Now, all of our supermarkets are so overly massive that they are renting out floor space to other retailers in an effort to curb their costs. And whatever happened to Knickerbox, Tie Rack, Sock Shop, the Sweater Shop, et al? I don't think their demise was due to online retailers?
I have definitely bought less this last six months, since watching the above mentioned documentary. It is a really thought-provoking piece. But an interesting point was made on my Instagram after I said I had felt bad at shopping in Primark for the first time in a month, after watching the programme. The comment was about the jobs which 'fast fashion' provides in so many countries. At great environmental cost and definitely not at decent wage levels. But still some kind of income for so many people who have next to nothing. And what about those employed in retail in developed countries? Plus, wages are low and prices for so many things are high everywhere. Many, many people really need cheap consumer goods. Just ask those who are having to go to the food bank, those who cannot afford school shoes for their children despite living in an apparently advanced society.
I don't have any answers. I will be shopping my wardrobe for 50 days but I wouldn't dream of judging those who are still buying. It is quite clear that something is going to have to give but as to what... We can only hope, here in the UK, that the changes which are surely coming will not be on the scale of the Seventies and Eighties upheavals in employment and consumption. I fear Brexit - deal or no deal - may be what pushes the retail sector into freefall though.
* Note: when creating the BBC link, I noticed that the documentary is on Last Chance and will leave BBC iPlayer on Wednesday 9 January. Download!
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