Saturday 26 March 2016

Wardrobe update - Capsule items 31-33

I'm running out of options for the capsule

Which probably isn't that surprising as, as you all know I’ve been surviving on a capsule of 35 items for 10 months now. Except that’s not strictly true is it? Because even now with less than 9 weeks to the end of the challenge I’m actually on 33. And I added a dress on Tuesday.

I’ve said before that there are benefits to planning at least most of your wardrobe in advance, but one of the things I didn’t cover was wear and tear. It’s taken me so long to fill the capsule that items I add now will likely be pristine next year – but the ones I put in during the first 2 months? They have worked much harder than they had to.

Because actually for the first 6 months my wardrobe was less than X items. And that’s just silly. I mentioned to a friend how I'd been after a breton top all year, but that it felt a bit late to get one now and she thought I was mad. Why hadn't I just got one in May? Indecisiveness that's why. It's meant I've had far less options than I should have throughout the last 10 months. But it does mean I can a add a few bits now - which I'm excited about!

I haven’t written about the last 3 items at all. So here they are:

Capsule wardrobe item # 31




In November I added this lovely shirt. And then I wore it to death. Which is weird because I’d somehow managed to avoid the old flannel shirt trend for years and now I’m totally bought in.


Capsule wardrobe item #32


Item 32 I bought in India: While we were away Ange and I spent a few days in Amma’s ashram and one of the core principles there is seva – or selfless service. Basically this means if you are going to stay there – then you do your share of the chores.  They also feel strongly about modest dress – so I wore my long grey dress A LOT! I signed up for hanging washing on the roof, washing posts & clearing waste from a plot of scrubland as my seva.

The scrubland clearing was scheduled for between 12 and 3. Yes you’re right – that is easily the hottest part of the day, and yes – India is a hot, hot country. I really, really wanted to get involved in the clearing but my clothing was a real obstacle. Serious gardening in a long floaty skirt just isn’t practical – and doing heavy physical work in the midday sun in the only clothing deemed modest enough for the place I was staying seemed unlikely to enhance my chances of making friends with people in the dining hall. None wants to sit next to the smelly girl at lunch.

So I took myself to Ram’s Bazaar – which is essentially the ashram’s charity shop. People often make the ashram one of the last stops on their trip and so leave clothes they won’t use at home there. I had a rummage and came away with these trousers which cost me the princely sum of 80p.

And they were such a good buy. Probably not something I’ll wear loads in the UK, but absolutely perfect for India. Cool, comfortable, modest – just perfect. I wore them pretty much every other day for the rest of the trip.

And clearing that scrubland? Probably one of my favourite afternoons of the whole trip – it was fascinating. We saw loads of weird grubs and burrowing insects I wasn’t expecting, spent ages trying to work out what the rubbish used to be before it was burnt, were amazed at the heat coming off the decomposing ayurvedic waste, and shat ourselves when more than 2 hours into doing this work in sandals the team leader remembered to mention that we should be careful rummaging through the rubbish as there would DEFINITELTLY BE SNAKES THERE! As you can imagine I reacted calmly and with dignity when faced with this knowledge …

Capsule Wardrobe item #33

Look Familiar?

Item 33 also has an Indian connection. Those of you who’ve been with me from the start of this journey will be very familiar with my denim dress. I wore it on the very first day of the challenge – and I’m pretty sure a week hasn’t gone past since where I haven’t worn it at least once. 

You’d imagine I’d be bored of it by now – but actually the opposite is true, I just love it more and more. So while I was away I had 3 copies made, one in dark blue, one in beige with blue dots and one in orange raw silk. 

My intention was to hold them over until next year – but earlier this week I decided I couldn’t wait any longer and added the beige dress to the circulation. And I love it – I don’t have to think about the different ways it’s possible to wear it – cos I’ve worked all of those out with the denim dress. It’s like a comfortable old friend, who has just got a haircut that really suits them. Comfortable and sexy at the same time. I’m pretty sure it’s going to get loads of wear over the next 9 weeks.

And because it feels silly to hold over the final 2 items and then only wear them 2 or 3 times in the challenge – my plan is to complete the capsule in the next week or so, adding (I think) another dress, and a pair of smart & comfortable sandals. That way I’ll at least have 8 weeks out of this challenge year when I know what it’s like to have the luxury of choosing from a full 35 item capsule!

There's still 9 weeks left of the challenge - so it's not too late to donate! Just follow this link.

Tuesday 22 March 2016

Capsule wardrobe top tips

So 10 months ago tomorrow was my 35th birthday. And I marked it by starting a year long charity challenge. The deal was that for the full year I had to stick to 35 items of clothing, for work for weddings for everything else.

The last 10 months have been pretty eye opening- so if you’re thinking of starting your own capsule challenge here’s a couple of things I got wrong. Read on to benefit from my mistakes.

Capsule wardrobe success #1 Don’t wing it

I read all the blogs about planning your capsule wardrobe, thinking about what goes with what and weighing up your different lifestyle needs. And then I thought “screw it – I’m a creative person. It’ll be fine!”. I worried I’d get bored if I chose everything and then had to live with it for a full year. And potentially I would have – but I also probably wouldn’t have panic bought half my wardrobe and ended up with nearly everything being grey. 

If you are doing this for a three month season, go ahead plan and commit – if like me you’re doing it for longer I’d suggest nailing down 80% of the years stuff outright – and saving yourself some treats for later on. Planning means your stuff will go together – giving you more options to be creative not less.

Capsule wardrobe success #2  Buy good quality (or buy men's)

My clothes all look pretty tired now. 10 months in I’ve resewn countless buttons, added insoles to all the shoes & had to replace 2 of the 5 pairs. I’ve strengthened seams in clothes that were starting to fall apart. 

Meanwhile my husband continues his own (oblivious) lifelong capsule challenge, of owning 2 hoodies, a handful of t-shirts 2 pairs of jeans and a suit for weddings and is doing just fine. I wrote about why this is a feminist issue here. But for now the lesson to learn is that quality matters, and that if you’re unsure looking at men’s stuff might be the way to go. Or look somewhere like Boden with their year-long guarantee on clothes that can make you pretty confident they are going to last.


    Capsule wardrobe success #3 Learn to use your washing machine


Probably you already do. I didn’t. I’ve been accustomed to losing maybe 20% of the clothes in each wash through “the washing machine lottery”. If you are living with less clothes - you can’t afford to do this, if you’ve done any reading on the environmental impact of clothes production – you can’t afford to do this, and if you want to be able to afford to buy ethically then assuming you earn less than 6 figures - you can’t afford it either! 

Spend a happy afternoon with a g&t and your washing machine manual. You won’t regret it.

   Capsule wardrobe success #4 Understand why you shop


I wrote about my emotional relationship with shopping here and here. This year I’ve gotten better and better at recognizing when I'm spending money to avoid thinking, and trying to find other ways of dealing with the fallout. I really hadn’t expected any emotional growth out of a year just wearing less clothes – but I got it. 

So if you decide to drastically change your boundaries on what you can buy/ wear be aware it might be tricky. As with any change in your life – be kind to yourself & give yourself space to think about what’s really going on.

Me taking a moment to be kind to myself in the most beautiful place ever

   Capsule wardrobe success #5 You need more shoes than you think

I calculated 5 pairs for the year, sandals, heels, 2xboots and trainers. The most worn of these by far were the sandals in the summer & the black ankle boots in the winter. And both pairs died and had to be replaced. 

I’m still pretty annoyed that both pairs died at approximately the £1 a wear mark. That’s just not alright with me - it doesn't feel like good value at all. But I also think I need to acknowledge the work that shoes put in. They literally carry the weight of your body & often they are the difference between looking smart and scruffy. 

If I were doing this again I’d have 9 pairs of shoes in the capsule, and from now on I’m investing a little more in shoes & getting the ones that have a reputation for lasting longer. Fashion shoes are over for me.

And finally….

  The Ultimate Capsule wardrobe success rule 

     -  Only buy stuff you actually like!



This is another one that’s probably obvious to you. It wasn’t to me.

 In the first couple of months I bought a fair few things to be practical. A skirt that was meant to be a compromise between my smarter work look and the super casual way I dress at home. It works for neither. A stripy vest top that isn’t exactly a vest – looks a bit shit dressed up or down. I compromised my style in an attempt to make my clothes more versatile loads - who remembers the palava with my winter coat?.

 So the simplest rule of all is to think about what you like to wear. Not what you like to see other people wear. Not what looks lovely in a shiny magazine. But the stuff you go back to time and time again and always enjoy wearing. 

Get those clothes out of the wardrobe. Really, really look at them. What is it you like about them? Their colour? Their shape? Their fabric? Write it down. That there – that’s your style – don’t compromise on it.

If you are thinking of trying this good luck. It has really changed the way I think about clothes, and now I’m in the final stretch (9 weeks to go!), I’m starting to think about next year. And next year I’ll be taking my own advice!


Do you have any tips on living with less you’d like to share? I’d love to hear them.

I started this challenge to raise money and awareness for Contact a Family - who are fighting on behalf of the 65% of parents of disabled children who go without clothes for themselves in order to meet the additional costs of raising a Disabled child. 100,000 disabled children will be affected by the introduction of Universal Credit. Want to help Contact a Family keep fighting? You can donate here.

Tuesday 8 March 2016

Things about being a girl I don't want for my niece

Happy International Women's Day


This morning I saw two really strong images that have stuck with me. The first was this



The second was of my niece celebrating her 4th birthday dressed as wonder woman.
Of course the juxta position between what I want for her (everything), and for my great nieces, and the daughters of my friends, and what that ticking down clock tells me they are likely to get is pretty shocking. I want to believe that living as they do in a wealthy country that their gender won’t make any difference to what they can achieve.

And relative to the rest of the world, my niece will be doing alright in terms of the protections the law offers her. But here’s a couple of gendered experiences I hope have disappeared by the time she’s a teenager (but I fear won’t have):

-          Being worried about what her career choices (& habits) say about her as a woman


I don’t want her to have to be an ambassador for all women if she chooses to be a pilot or a firefighter. Neither do I want people to assume she’s not a feminist if she’s a hairdresser or a stay at home mum. I want her to be able to choose what makes her happy on her own behalf without considering her gender – and I want that for boys too.

-          Being taught to equate being liked with being mistreated


Most women I know had to ‘grow out’ of bad boys. Men who treated them with distain, bullies really. And is this any wonder when little girls get told ‘it’s only because he likes you’ when they get teased or their hair pulled. We’re teaching girls to equate disrespect with love. And that’s awful for everyone. At school I once heard a girl say (about a delightful, and very straight guy), ‘I’m sorry he’s so lovely- I’m sure he must be gay.’ WHAT!!! Let’s leave aside the weird assumption your sexuality has any impact on how pleasant a human being you are, and consider what she actually meant here. What she meant was – he’s so nice he can’t possibly find me attractive, and anyway since he’s kind I don’t fancy him either. What an awful thing to do to girls. What an awful thing to do to boys! I want society to teach girls it’s ok to fancy boys who’ll be nice to them, that’s not too much to ask is it?

-          Being sexualised without her consent, and when she is too young to understand it.


I don’t want her to get whistled at from cars, to be approached on the street by men calling her baby. I don’t want her to be told she should be flattered by the attention, or that she’ll break a load of hearts when she grows up. I don’t want her to have to think about what dressing comfortably in summer might make some men think about when she is 12 (or 15 or 17 or 67 for that matter) years old.

-          Being taught about sex without being taught about pleasure.


Sex education in this country starts with an erection and ends with ejaculation (I wish I could lay claim to that phrase but I stole it off my mate Ester – you can read her stuff here). Isn’t that awful – we get taught how to know if a man is turned on, but not whether we are. I was in my 20’s before I worked out what really floated my boat (a phrase that with better sex education we’d consider super filthy), and loads of girls just assume their first time will be painful or unpleasant. Women have sex with men who don’t turn them on all the time. And they do that because sex education focuses on really liking someone and not how you can tell if you physically fancy them. You can really really like someone and not want to have sex with them – that’s called friendship – it’s awesome. You can really, really want to have sex with someone but have no interest in being their friend – and that’s fine too. One day hopefully you have a buddy that you want to have sex with – that’s the ideal, but it’s not the only way.

-          Being defined by what she chooses to do with her vagina


She won’t be frigid if she says no to someone she doesn’t want to sleep with. Nor will she be a slut if she says yes to someone she does. She’ll be herself and valuable for a million other things. I’d be delighted if the rest of the world accepted that.

-          Being offered male help (& feeling able to accept it)


I’ve been really lucky throughout my career to have been mentored by some amazing and powerful women. I’ve also been lucky to be mentored by some really fabulous men. And that can be more unusual – not because there aren’t loads of guys out there who just want to develop the brightest people regardless of their gender. But because there are risks around the perception of why an older man would take a younger woman out for a coffee to talk about their career that there simply aren’t for same sex mentor/ mentee relationships. I’m lucky that the men who’ve taught me about business planning, finance, about how it’s ok to get angry - but not so ok to show it in meetings, these guys were brave enough, and sensible enough to ignore what people might think and treat me the same as they would a young guy with my potential and my faults. I don’t want my niece to have to worry that her male co-workers have ulterior motives for helping her – or for those colleagues not to offer her a hand for fear of how it’ll make them look.  I want her to be a brain at work, not an ornament or liability.

-          Being told what a woman is (or a man for that matter)


Men who are direct are direct. Women who are direct are bossy or bitches. Women who are sensitive to the emotions of people around them are women, but men who react this way are soft. It’s bollocks. If we can get away from ladylike, manning up, being a good girl or a brave boy. If we could get to a place where all we had to be was ourselves – the world would be a much better place, for my nieces, and my great nieces, and for my nephews too.

Let's keep working towards that shall we. Happy International Women's Day.

Sunday 6 March 2016

My problem with Mother's Day

So today is Mother's Day

 As a 35-year-old woman who’d love to be a mum but isn’t it’s a weird day. Mother’s day for me this year is about absence. Let’s leave aside the fact that online it feels like every day is mother’s day, my Facebook feed is covered in smug memes telling me I don’t yet understand love because as yet I’ve failed to push anything out my chuff. Let’s also ignore that my own mother is out of the country so I’m not able to celebrate with her either. That Mother’s day is something I’ll celebrate by proxy with my mother in law.

I think the reason I don’t care for Mother’s day is that it boils down a lifelong reciprocal relationship into one day a year. I’m not bought into the idea that the way you celebrate Mother’s day reflects how well loved you are, or how much you know about loving.


Me & My Mum
 

Mother’s day, is one of those times where we’re all supposed to feel like we’re part of a club. Where we’re all united by our shared experience of being mothered, or being a mother.

One of those clubs I couldn’t be in if I tried. But I think both are a bit of a con. They suggest that mothering or being mothered is a universal experience, and I simply do not believe that is true. It is true that I don’t know how it feels to be a mother, but my friends who have children don’t know how it feels to parent each other’s children either. My experience of loving my husband is different to their experiences of loving theirs. There is no equivalency when you talk about love, it’s always different – it’s unique because it has to be, a reflection of a relationship between two complex individuals.

My family is a perfect example of that. My mum loves us all equally – but our relationships with her are as unique as we are.

Actually I take that back – she doesn’t love us all equally. What a horrible trite phrase. Love is not measured in cups and ounces. I’ll rephrase – she doesn’t love any of us more- or less than any of the others. She loves us differently.

The measures of our love are different for myself and my sisters for the rest of the year, for me it’s about how often I can get mum to laugh at something she feels she shouldn’t, how often she comforts me by reminding me that time passes and that when I look back I'll see things differently. I know that my sisters look at different things, have their own in jokes and special memories. And yet this one day a year we’re supposed to pick a generic card out of the rack and have it express everything about our relationship, and it can’t. If even we as sisters couldn't agree on one perfect card, then it has to be nonsense for the rest of the world.
We could probably agree that '90's fashions weren't that kind on any of us though....
 
I won’t find a Mother’s day card that thanks my mum for making my childhood magical in the particular way she did. Taking toys from my bed when I was poorly, and replacing them before I woke with new clothes on. Getting her friends to save those tiny margarine tubs Harvester used to give out with baked potatoes so I had shoeboxes for my Sindy dolls. There is no mother’s day card that says thank you for not killing me when I left my dirty hockey boots in the airing cupboard all summer and they went mouldy. Nor is there one that says I’m sorry for losing my bus pass constantly and nearly crippling your finances with replacement costs. I think it’s unlikely I’ll find a card that reflects our particular memories - being made to sit on tea towels so we didn’t ruin the sofa, the time our puppy ate my friend’s wallet complete with the to – die- for concert tickets it contained, when I belly flopped into the pool on our first ever holiday abroad, or the next holiday we took on our own together to Italy nearly 30 years later.

My beautiful unique mum on my wedding day (no idea what my nephew is doing with his nose there)


My relationship with my mother isn’t generic. And neither is yours. The universal mother concept sentimentalises a relationship that is huge, and scary and feral in its immediacy. You may have a great relationship with your mother, you may have a terrible one – you may never have met her. The one thing we all share is that we were grown inside a woman’s body, and that probably our relationship (or lack of) with that woman has shaped us profoundly. But this day where we reduce those mothers into identikit cookie cutter benign princesses is insulting to them as unique individual women. By all means let’s celebrate our relationships with our mothers. Celebrate it today. But not with generic sentiment, and mass produced mother’s day tat. Go do the stuff your Mum loves to do with her, make her laugh over the phone, buy her a spanner if she’d prefer that to a ‘world’s best mum’ mug (who wouldn’t really), or maybe make your own card – or write her a love letter. I just did.  

It costs three times more to raise a disabled child. Too many disabled children live in poverty. Help Contact a Family make a difference by donating here

 

Friday 4 March 2016

How to throw a clothes swap party

Clothes swapping is the most ethical way to be stylish

 
When I started this challenge more than nine months ago now I was worried I was alone. I thought that I was the only one who was finding the amount of stuff I owned stressful. I wrote blogs where I worried you'd think I was dirty for wearing the same clothes two days in a row. I worried you'd think it was weird that my sisters and I had swapped bras.
 
 
I was so wrong. So many of you got in touch to talk about how much you enjoyed getting rid of your stuff, how you were finding ways to live with less and how satisfying you found it to limit your impact on the planet by buying second hand.
 
 
So last month when I invited you to attend a clothes swapping event to help me raise cash for Contact a Family- I thought a couple of you might turn up. And again you astounded me when 80 of you bought tickets!
 
I think we showed that clothes swaps don't need to feel like jumble sales - that they can be super classy events where people can leave with stuff they'll treasure. Here's a couple of tips on how to get it done.
  • Start with a good reserve of clothes.
We asked people to bring between 3 and 6 items each. We wanted to be sure that no one was left without choice - so between us me, Bella and a couple of our friends donated a good stock of clothes to start with.
 
This skirt was one of the bits I donated.

and that pineapple dress.

  • Work out how you are going to manage the swap.
We sorted stuff as people came in so we knew how many items people brought in. We also put the really special stuff aside on a separate rail and made sure that people who brought along super lovely bits got first dibs on taking something lush home.





  • Display stuff nicely
 
Everything looks nicer when it's nicely folded or hung right? We were really lucky to have the secret garden in Shoreditch House as our venue. But it also helped that we bought baskets, trays and hangers from home to sort things in. We also put similar stuff together so people found it easier to find what they were looking for.
 



 
 
  • Give people time to rummage
 
Self evident - this one. No-one likes to be rushed.

 


  •  Think about where people are going to try things on
Some of our friends were really happy just trying things on in public. But there was a changing space for people who were more shy. If you are doing this at home it's something to think about.



  • Tell people they look great when they find something they love!
 
If you fancy running your own clothes party Contact a Family can help & you can feel doubly good because you're raising money for a great cause. Get in touch here if you need a hand.
 
Thanks to everyone who came particular thanks are due to:
 
  •  My partner in crime Bella for her organisational genius.
     
    Me & Bella stood on a table (no change there)
  • The fab Charlotte Dawe for getting us the room
Ms Dawe is the fox in the mustard cardi