What's the Point?
When I started this No New Clothes challenge, one of the first posts I intended to write was a post outlining my reasons for not buying any new garments for a year. The year is now almost up and if you read my blog regularly you will know that somehow I still have not written that post.
To be honest, I've started and deleted that post probably half a dozen times. I've thought about it nearly every day, in one way or another. And yet, still no post.
Why, you ask?
In 2017, we live in an incredibly enlightened, opinionated online world. While this is a wonderful thing, it has also fostered an online community in which it is so easy to say the wrong thing, so easy for your words to be taken the wrong way, or for a simple mistake to cause offence. I struggled to write this post because I'm a human. I'm imperfect. I don't do things as well as I should. I still contribute to all the problems of the garment industry in many ways, and I never expected that this challenge would somehow take away my culpability for that. I also didn't want anyone thinking that I'm somehow better than them for doing this, or that I'm trying to bring shame upon those who buy lots of new clothes.
I guess I had trouble writing this post because I knew this challenge was only for one year. One year and then I might be back to participating in the cycle of consumerism and fast-fashion just as much as I was before. So what's the point of talking about these problems if I'm just going to continue contributing to them once the year is up? It's a tough question. One which I haven't fully solved yet. I hope that when the year is up I will have a different perspective on consumerism and fashion. I hope that I'll still get the things I need second-hand as much as possible. But my future self isn't here yet and right now I don't feel like I can honestly make those promises, so I guess I felt it was silly of me to even try.
If you want to know what's wrong with the garment industry, there are a ton of great resources for you to read/watch. You could read this, or this, or this. You can read about how enormously detrimental the fast fashion cycle is to the environment, to people living in poverty who are forced into fashion labour, and about how we have been duped into thinking we need more and more clothes to feed the wallets of corporations.
If you want to know how mind-blowingly simple and refreshing a Minimalist lifestyle is, you can watch the documentary Minimalism on Netflix.
I'm not the expert on any of these things. I never wanted to pretend like I was. I guess up until now I thought that that's what I had to do - I thought that by taking on this challenge it meant taking responsibility for informing the public. I thought it had become my duty to share how the garment and textile industries are causing incredible destruction, but are doing it quietly without all the attention that say factory farming gets.
And I guess that's what stopped me from making this post. I felt guilty - how could I stand for these things? How could I speak with authority on these issues when my one year without new clothes makes virtually no difference? How could I pretend like I was working to stop these issues when I very well may go back to contributing to them after one year?
But then I realized - this is what we do all the time when it comes to hard issues. We let the fear of "failure" or of not doing things perfectly STOP us from trying at all. Sure my one year doesn't really make a difference. Sure I did it imperfectly (remember those Aldo shoes I posted about?). Sure my efforts are just one tiny drop in a roaring sea of information and opinions and problems. But if nobody ever tried, nothing would ever happen.
So did I save the world by doing this challenge? Of course not. Did I educate people and really contribute to a discussion and a solution? Not really. But did I have an idea with a good intention behind it, and follow through with that to the best of my ability? Yeah, I did. And as the imperfect, messy, not-always-capable human that I am, I think that's maybe a step in the right direction.
I was listening to a podcast recently and someone said that humans are always, constantly bouncing between 51% and 49% good and evil, some days being 51% good and other days being 51% evil. The speaker said that all we can really do is try our best to keep that 51% good as much of the time as we can. So no, my efforts and my impact in this challenge weren't earth-shattering. They weren't even earth-shivering to be honest. But I think this effort was at least an attempt to push myself towards 51% good. To quote one of my favourite authors, "and now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good".
XO
K
To be honest, I've started and deleted that post probably half a dozen times. I've thought about it nearly every day, in one way or another. And yet, still no post.
Why, you ask?
In 2017, we live in an incredibly enlightened, opinionated online world. While this is a wonderful thing, it has also fostered an online community in which it is so easy to say the wrong thing, so easy for your words to be taken the wrong way, or for a simple mistake to cause offence. I struggled to write this post because I'm a human. I'm imperfect. I don't do things as well as I should. I still contribute to all the problems of the garment industry in many ways, and I never expected that this challenge would somehow take away my culpability for that. I also didn't want anyone thinking that I'm somehow better than them for doing this, or that I'm trying to bring shame upon those who buy lots of new clothes.
I guess I had trouble writing this post because I knew this challenge was only for one year. One year and then I might be back to participating in the cycle of consumerism and fast-fashion just as much as I was before. So what's the point of talking about these problems if I'm just going to continue contributing to them once the year is up? It's a tough question. One which I haven't fully solved yet. I hope that when the year is up I will have a different perspective on consumerism and fashion. I hope that I'll still get the things I need second-hand as much as possible. But my future self isn't here yet and right now I don't feel like I can honestly make those promises, so I guess I felt it was silly of me to even try.
If you want to know what's wrong with the garment industry, there are a ton of great resources for you to read/watch. You could read this, or this, or this. You can read about how enormously detrimental the fast fashion cycle is to the environment, to people living in poverty who are forced into fashion labour, and about how we have been duped into thinking we need more and more clothes to feed the wallets of corporations.
If you want to know how mind-blowingly simple and refreshing a Minimalist lifestyle is, you can watch the documentary Minimalism on Netflix.
I'm not the expert on any of these things. I never wanted to pretend like I was. I guess up until now I thought that that's what I had to do - I thought that by taking on this challenge it meant taking responsibility for informing the public. I thought it had become my duty to share how the garment and textile industries are causing incredible destruction, but are doing it quietly without all the attention that say factory farming gets.
And I guess that's what stopped me from making this post. I felt guilty - how could I stand for these things? How could I speak with authority on these issues when my one year without new clothes makes virtually no difference? How could I pretend like I was working to stop these issues when I very well may go back to contributing to them after one year?
But then I realized - this is what we do all the time when it comes to hard issues. We let the fear of "failure" or of not doing things perfectly STOP us from trying at all. Sure my one year doesn't really make a difference. Sure I did it imperfectly (remember those Aldo shoes I posted about?). Sure my efforts are just one tiny drop in a roaring sea of information and opinions and problems. But if nobody ever tried, nothing would ever happen.
So did I save the world by doing this challenge? Of course not. Did I educate people and really contribute to a discussion and a solution? Not really. But did I have an idea with a good intention behind it, and follow through with that to the best of my ability? Yeah, I did. And as the imperfect, messy, not-always-capable human that I am, I think that's maybe a step in the right direction.
I was listening to a podcast recently and someone said that humans are always, constantly bouncing between 51% and 49% good and evil, some days being 51% good and other days being 51% evil. The speaker said that all we can really do is try our best to keep that 51% good as much of the time as we can. So no, my efforts and my impact in this challenge weren't earth-shattering. They weren't even earth-shivering to be honest. But I think this effort was at least an attempt to push myself towards 51% good. To quote one of my favourite authors, "and now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good".
XO
K
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