The Dark Side Of Our Primark Obsession - An End To Blind Buying?

I've been sorting through my wardrobes (yes, plural) lately to sort the wheat from the chaff. I've been fairly ruthless and culled everything I can no longer fit into or no longer wear. There's a lot that can be sold on eBay but an equal sized pile of charity shop donations.

Then I read this article in The Times and wondered what good my charity would actually do? Although my clothes are cared for, will they actually be able to be resold or be used? It's a sobering thought that our frivolity when it comes to fashion does have significant consequences. I, for one, am fairly oblivious to what actually happens to the bags of clothes I drop off at charity shops. Perhaps if there was a greater understanding of what charities do with our donations then we'd be more careful in our buying?

Maybe it's time to think about a new challenge, one where making informed choices and decisions on what to buy influences future clothes purchases. We're all guilty of it - quickly nipping into town to buy a cheap top for a night out because we feel we have nothing to wear. It's not that we have nothing to wear, we just don't want to wear what we've got. You don't get the same buzz from wearing something you've worn a thousand times before. Maybe if existing clothes were more carefully chosen and invested in then we could get the love back. After all, fashion magazines extol the virtues of investing in classic pieces but shouldn't we adopt the same approach to all our clothes? This doesn't mean buying only designer pieces - goodness knows that some of them use horrendous fabrics that nowhere near reflect the price - but taking more time to think about the fabric and the quality of the garment. Something that's well made will last for years no matter how much it cost initially.

I'm not saying abandon Primark at the like completely, just that maybe we should be a little more rational and thoughtful about what we spend our money on and open our eyes to the bigger impact of our fashion habits.

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