Is this too easy? Let's make it harder....

“You don’t make things easy on yourself do you?”

Honestly I feel like someone says this to me at least once a week. Not just in relation to the challenge but everything I choose to do….

When we first got Squeak, she ate my sofa and both of my armchairs, tore up skirting boards and freaked out every time she was left alone for 5 minutes. I of course immediately adored her, but several friends asked me why on earth I’d want to take on a dog that was such hard work.

But not my best friends mum, she’s known me since I was eight and to her it made total sense “Of course you’d take on a rescue dog, and a clumsy, anxious one at that. You’ve always found easy things boring” – and she was right.

 

Squeak - showing off her appetite for destruction!

That sofa Squeak ate – did I buy it from a shop and have it delivered ready to go like a normal, sensible person with a full time job would? Of course not. I bought a second hand vintage suite, went on an upholstery course and spent 6 painful months taking the chairs apart and putting them back together. We sat in and enjoyed the chairs for maybe 3 months before we got Squeak……

The thing is Squeak has been worth the sofa, and the changes to our life, the expense, the vet’s bills, and the constant worry about if we are giving her a good life. She has an amazing personality and has repaid us tenfold in love and laughter for every effort we put in. And actually I’ve found that about almost everything I’ve ever worked hard at (except maybe that sofa – that I will admit was a momentous waste of time). If I have to push myself to do something then I value it, I almost always learn something new and I LOVE learning.

Squeak - worth the effort for food cleaning up support alone!

I hit the 100 days mark on the challenge on Monday. In the last 100 days some awesome things have happened – 2 weddings, several engagements, trips to the zoo, family parties, nights away with Matt, at work there have been award nominations (lots of them!), interviews, events, conferences, round tables – a really busy, challenging and rewarding 100 days. And through that 100 days, 23 items of clothing worn, a photo taken every day and 38 posts on the blog.

And I’ve learnt LOADS about myself. But maybe not enough – because last week I made a decision that will bring me great joy – but is going to make this whole challenge that little bit harder. In January I’m going to take a month off work to travel around India.

I am hugely excited about this – I love India and it’s been a decade since I was last there, I’m going with a friend that I love dearly and who makes me laugh so much I snort things out of my nose.

And so mainly I’m excited - but there is a teeny tiny part of me that is (very) worried about clothes. I have 12 items left to add to my year’s allowance (13 if you guys decide to let me swap the broken sandals for the new pair I got). And as everyone who’s seen Game of Thrones knows – winter is coming.

In my summer wardrobe I didn’t include a single long skirt or lightweight pair of trousers- both of which I’ll need in India, I’m also going to need another long sleeved shirt – ideally these will be lightweight as it is going to be hot.

But winter here? Christmas? February? (Especially on return from a hot country) – That’s going to be cold. So I’m still going to need winter boots, a flannel shirt, a couple of long sleeved t-shirts, a couple of jumpers, a coat, a warm skirt, a second pair of jeans, a hat, scarf and gloves – oh and something to wear to Bob and Laura’s wedding. Which the mathematicians amongst you will notice is 16 new items, out of a maximum of 13 things I can buy between now and May. And that doesn’t leave even a tiny bit of wiggle room for things wearing out.

So I’m going to have to think about this really carefully – how cold is it likely to be here this winter? Do I need a winter coat or will I be able to get away with layering jumpers under my Mac? What about if the jumpers are long sleeved? Can I manage without gloves?

I think it’ll be doable (just). But it isn’t going to be easy – of course not – everyone knows I don’t make things easy on myself!

*A huge thankyou to everyone reading the blog. At the time of writing this there has been a hugmongous 18,500 page views. I’m loving hearing from you all – keep the comments, tweets and messages coming! And remember I’m doing this whole shindig for charity so if you feel moved to donate you can do so here.

Enjoy your weekends.

Why flimsy falling apart clothes ARE a feminist issue

Those of you that have been following my challenge so far will know that I'm starting to fret about the impact that general wear and tear could have on my ability to manage the full year whilst looking (passably) respectable.

I really don't want to have to go to work in t-shirts with holes in them or anything that has gone limp as a result of too many washes. So I've been asking myself: why do my clothes last so much less time than Matt's?

Seriously.

I work from home or in the office, and he works on a building site. He has 1 pair of jeans, one suit ,some site trousers and a handful of tops. I have (or had) a gazillion items of clothing. So Matt was wearing his clothes more often than me, asked more of them in terms of toughness, and they still lasted longer than mine.

How can this be?

I did a bit of a poll of my friends and it turns out this isn't unique to Matt & I. My friends with a reasonable amount of clothes say their clothes wear out faster than their partners and those who (like me) normally have overflowing wardrobes also say that those clothes they wear regularly tend to fall to bits, and actually lots of women talked about having bought clothes that barely survived one wash. The only exceptions I can find to the falling apart clothes trend amongst my friendship group are the ladies that tend to wear unisex clothing and those that wear vintage.

But none of my male friends said the same about their clothes. In fact several proudly crowed about still wearing t-shirts they bought when they were in their teens and early twenties.

So do women get sold clothes that are worse quality than men's and if so why?

Well (as usual) I think I have a theory. 

My male friends buy less clothes (as a rule) than my female friends. And they expect them to last - so they buy on the basis of quality and manafacturures respond to that. Matt still whinges about a pair of jeans he bought 7 years ago that only lasted one year, and I'm confident he will never buy that brand again. 

One of the reasons men buy less clothes is because mens fashions change much more slowly and subtly than womens. There is no appreciable difference between 'this years shirt' and 'last years' shirt - so why not keep wearing last years?

But women's fashions leap around year to year, with cuts, colours and fabrics coming in and out of trend season apon season. And women buy new clothes in order to keep up, creating a lot more churn in our wardobes. From a manufacturers point of veiw if we're only going to wear an item for one season why invest money in a manufacturing it to last any longer?

The interesting bit of this for me is this- who is it that actually wants us to change our style 2 or 3 times a year? It's not to our benefit as women to have to worry about how to pull off cullotes or Bardot tops for goodness sakes. But it does benefit businesses - manufacturers, retailers, and all of the other industries that blossom around selling us more and different things. And it benefits them because it allows them to make money.

I don't think businesses like womens money more than men's either - I think they'd have boys wearing purple pvc in spring and and felted onesies in autumn if they thought they could make money out of it. But they can't, because men have always been judged by who they are and what they do and so they don't rest their self esteem on fitting in with the way 'everyone' looks this season.

It's different for us as women. It's only a couple of generations back that a good wife was seen and not heard, with the emphasis on seen. The way to tell if a man had good taste, or a good income was to look to his wife, was she pretty, obedient, was she wearing the latest style? Men are (like it or not) still judged by society on the appropriateness of the women on their arms.

And we as women, are emerging blinking into a society that is just beginning to recognise that our value is greater than the compliments that our husbands recieve about us. We're still objectified, our intellect is of far less interest to the media than our boyfriends, babies, diets and shoes. Our mothers have taught us what it is to be appropriate, to dress appropriately and respectably, as their mothers taught them, and their mother's mothers before that.

And so we buy into wearing what everyone is wearing - because fitting in is only polite. And if what everyone is wearing changes season apon season then naturally so is what we wear. And so as a result we get sold crap as men get sold quality.

What to do? Here are the three things that we women could do to change this.

1. Work out what we feel good wearing, and then only buy that. Screw what everyone else is wearing.
2. Complain in writing (& on social media) when our clothes fall apart, and then don't shop in those stores again.
3. Promote the labels that do last, by telling people about them, investing in them again next time and letting them know they've done well.

The only way we get clothes that last is by demonstrating with our shopping habits that that is what is valuable to us and profitable to stores.

Because fashion itself isn't sexist - our culture is. And culture is people and we as people can shape it. So let's.

What do you think?

Capsule query - Do work clothes 'work' at a wedding?

I went to Sheffield for some friends’ wedding reception last weekend. The whole do was steam punk themed and in my normal life I would have used this as an excuse to go bonkers on a costume, however the challenge didn’t offer me that option – so instead I had to pick something already on the list. I went for my green silk dress and black heels. I thought because I looked wedding appropriate that I’d get away with it, but it turn out what I wear is as much about how I feel in my clothes as how I look in them.

Day 78 -Me & Donna at the wedding

When I began this challenge I thought a lot about how I could make sure I had clothes that looked right for all of the occasions I might have to go to. And I think I’ve done pretty well with 23 items so far to cover looks appropriate for all sorts of occasions. What it turns out I hadn’t thought about was that I buy clothes for the impression I’m trying to make in them, and that wearing the same dress to a wedding as I wear to speak at conferences might cause me some confusion.

I bought the dress I wore to the wedding just over a year ago to wear to speak at a conference, since then I’ve worn it to several more conferences, meetings at government departments and with trustees, events at Westminister, donor meetings and other professional settings. This dress has become my sartorial ‘safe pair of hands’ outfit. I wear it almost exclusively when I am trying to exude trustworthiness, reliability and good sense.  And because I wear it for this sort of thing, it has become a part of my armour – I associate particular behaviours with it and weirdly I find it more natural to live those behaviours when I’m in it. In this dress I stand a little taller, talk a little slower and swear a whole lot less.

Which is perfect for work based occasions. But this weekend I wasn’t at work. I was with my husband and a load of friends I have known since I was a teenager, celebrating a wedding in the back room of our local pub. The behaviours expected of me in this environment are really very different and I was struggling to make the transition.

People kept asking me if I was ok and I kept telling them that weirdly I just didn’t feel able to let go the way I normally would. I felt like I was at a professional event – like I should be diligently networking, and writing notes about connections between people I’d said I would follow up. And that’s not what I should have been doing.

I should have been giggling with my friends about how easy it is to photograph Heathers calves so they look like a bum, throwing shapes on the dance floor and covering myself in red lipstick. You know - this kind of stuff....

Of course – there was a way to get past the whole professional boundaries thing. Not a mature, healthy or advisable way, and a way I regretted on the bumpy train ride home – but none the less. It turns out a short cut to feeling like you are 19 again, is to drink like you are 19 again. A fab night was had by all – though the (predictable) side affect of this was that I woke up the next morning feeling (and looking) 80.

Day 79 - Hangover has aged me by a decade!

So lesson learnt? Even with very few wardrobe choices if you live a life where your professional and personal lives are miles apart, it might be worth identifying which clothes work best for which areas. Personally that dress – it’s just for sensible times for the rest of the year – mainly because I don’t want to find myself channelling ‘naughty Ed’ at a work event.

Can I just take a moment to thank you all both for your donations (not even 3 months into the year and already we’ve raised nearly half the target – THANKYOU), and for reading and sharing the blog. I’m not really sure how it happened but there have been more than 8500 views on this blog so far. Wow! 

Lots of you lovely people have been in touch with me and I’m really loving hearing from you – please keep the comments and emails coming. One thing a number of you have asked is how it’s easiest to follow the blog. Well I’ve just joined Bloglovin’, it’s a fab site that lets you follow all the blogs you like in one place. There is a follow button on my sidebar – if you join you’ll get an alert everytime I post new content – plus it’s a doorway to all sorts of other cool blogs, like this one.

 

So THANKYOU, and since it looks like the rain has stopped just in time for the weekend I really hope you all have lovely sunny Saturdays,

Ed x

Uniforms, self expression and the importance of choice

I’m aware that over the last couple of weeks of the challenge I’ve talked lots about how not being able to shop is doing me good. I’ve done posts about emotional shopping, and about wasting money trying to look like someone else. I stand by those posts and the lessons I learned writing them. 

That said I’m a bit worried that I may (inadvertently) have given you the impression I think that clothes and personal style are unimportant, trivial even. And that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Choosing what we wear every morning is one of the key acts of control we take over our lives. And whether you consider yourself into fashion or not, whatever you chose to put on your body today does say something about you. 

The reason that I chose this challenge is because I value personal expression so much, and use clothes to both express and hide myself. I’m hoping the challenge will support me to dress more authentically, but I don’t want to break my relationship with clothes. I value the opportunities for non verbal communication they provide.

Recently I’ve read loads of interesting articles about uniforms. These articles talk about people taking an active choice to limit what they are wearing to one particular look, even in some cases exact copies of the same items worn every day. 

There is an evolution in the increasingly popular choice to find one look and stick with it that I find beautiful and fascinating. It’s not just about saving time and energy.  I love that by adopting a uniform people are subverting something that is traditionally externally imposed  on us (by our schools, workplaces & prisons) and claiming it as a symbol of their uniqueness. 

Throughout history uniforms have been used to strip people of their individuality, identify them as a type and essentially dehumanise them. From traditional maids outfits designed to make your ‘staff’ indistinguishable from each other, to the harrowing examples of the striped pyjamas of holocaust victims, uniforms make it easier to ask things of or do things to people than it would be if we saw them as fully rounded human beings. And if you are not sure this follows check out the way staff are treated next time you go into a fast food restaurant. Do you think these guys get treated with that dismissiveness , distain and outright rudeness when they are dressed in their civvies? Of course not. Like it or not clothes are used to delineate status, and we humans are total arsewipes when it comes to the way we treat people we believe to have lower status than us.

I can’t pretend it doesn’t worry me that the people I tend to see in uniforms are people who we are asking to work for less than a living wage, people who we expect to obey orders without question and children and young people in their educational settings (yes I’m aware my first 2 points also apply to children and young people – they get a bit of a raw deal no?).

Those of us who get to choose what we wear to work are really privileged, we are offered the opportunity to choose things that fit us, are comfortable on us and express whatever we want to say about ourselves. Showing up to work in trackie bottoms is just as powerful a statement as wearing high heels and lipstick every day. And we are super lucky to be able to make that choice. 

It’s just a shame that that choice has turned into a brilliant marketing opportunity for clothing companies, who’ve gotten really good at getting us to spend money on stuff that doesn’t express who we are, but instead a sense of ‘now’ that is transitory and leads to us constantly updating our wardrobes rather than confidently choosing what our look is and sticking with it.

That’s why I totally admire people who are make really strong choices about what they like to wear and stick with that.  For example Matilda Kahl wears a white silk shirt and black trousers to work everyday,. She decided she had better things to think about than what to put on every morning, and  says her career and self worth are blossoming as a result of the time and energy she is saving.  She is – in her own way raising the social value of wearing a uniform. And yes it’s a chosen uniform – but I hope there is a translation there to the way we feel about everyone who dresses in a consistent way whether that is chosen or not.

Clothes are important, to how we are seen by others and to how we see ourselves. And we can make the best of this by taking the good and leaving the bad. We can choose to wear what we feel comfortable in as often as we can, and by seeing past the uniforms other people wear to the human being – worthy of respect-  that is wearing it.

Or to put it simply – don’t wear things that chafe or give you blisters (unless that’s your thing…..) and don’t be an arsewipe to the girl serving you your burger, or the guy cleaning the street you live on. Clothes tell you a little something about the person wearing them – but not enough. To know someone you need to know them.

And those of you that know me will know I’ve been getting my hugely impractical polka dot dress out to look at everyday this week. I know I can’t put it in the capsule, it’s too fragile and it doesn’t go with anything. You can help me to resist temptation and stay strong with a bit of sponsorship. Here’s the link.  

And this is that frock I'm missing (and my gorgeous neice)

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