COP 26

[watervole]

We all know the climate is in a perilous state, and how close to the edge of complete ecosystem collapse we are treading.

Governments need to act in a big way, but we can also make changes on an individual level that will help.

So, I'll be posting a series of posts during COP 26 to remind us all of what we can do.

Let's start with a relatively easy challenge for reducing your carbon footprint - clothing.

Clothing and textiles make up about 2% of the footprint of the average UK citizen, but it can be 5 to 10 times higher for people who like fast fashion and buy lots of clothes.

 

I've been doing this challenge for several years now. Baring underwear and shoes, I don't buy any new clothing at all.

 

The interesting aspect is that I often get compliments on items of clothing that I bought decades ago.

Also, it's rather nice to get a compliment on a 'new' skirt, smile and say that it only cost a fiver in a charity shop!

More on the climate impact of clothing and what you can do is here (my sister Gillian has done a lot of work on this)

the12daysofcop.wordpress.com/wear-clothes-to-last/

 

 

Like

 

 

 

Comment

 

 

Share

 

 

Comments

[lexin]

I've pretty much stopped buying new clothes except for underwear and socks.

[watervole]

You get the gold star award.

The only reason I'm not buying socks is becuase I'm a knitting addict, but as I have to buy yarn for the socks, they still really count as new.

(though I have got two balls of donated sock yarn in my stash, so I guess they're my next knitting project)

[rpdom]

I pretty much keep clothes until they are worn out. I will be buying some new socks soon as the old ones are starting to develop holes.

[watervole]

Gold star award.

Socks really count as guilt-free - there's a limit to how much you can darn them. Wool ones are darnable (and I do), but ones made of thinner fabric really aren't practical to darn.

[kotturinn]

Another not-new-clothes person here, barring the underwear/shoes points. Currently oldest item I'm wearing is a dressing gown made sometime last century, probably 1980s. It was good fabric & it doesn't get worn every day!

[watervole]

Gold star award.

I think your dressing gown beats my loose jacket by about ten years, so we're both scoring well today.

[igenlode]

I saw 'last century' and read that as 1880s :-)

I own various items of elderly clothing that definitely date back to the 1970s, judging by the labels, and a few pieces from the 1950s/60s that were actively acquired as 'vintage'. Nothing from the 19th century, though!

(I do own -- and have used -- some vintage clothes patterns that I have used to make replica garments, including a couple of Victorian knitting patterns, though they tend to be pretty vague. The nightcap was not a success :-p)

[watervole]

I have a Cashmere jumper that I bought as 'vintage', though I must admit I just saw it as a thin, warm jumper that would make a good underlayer.

Why were nightcaps long and thin? Or was that just a passing fashion? Seems odd to have fashion in night ware, though.

[igenlode]

It looks as if the 'long thin' fashion may have become perpetuated as the modern image of nightcaps on account of the popularity of "A Christmas Carol", in which Scrooge is illustrated as wearing a cap in that style. (I can attest for it that they are not particularly practical in bed, because they don't grip the head well and the long tail makes them even more likely to come off!) Wikipedia claims that the function of the long end was to help keep the back of the neck warm, which would also only be useful while sitting up out of bed, or to serve as a scarf -- I'm a bit sceptical. I've also seen the suggestion that they were simply easier to make in a triangular shape than cut and shaped to the head, and the 18th century seems to have had a style dubbed the 'tied tube' cap http://www.larsdatter.com/18c/mens-caps.html#tied-tube which was obviously fairly simple to construct.
[Edit: here's a pattern illustrating the single-seam construction of the triangular cap https://www.historical-tailoring.com/2012/10/drafting-a-gentlemans-night-cap/ ]

Earlier nightcaps appear to have been much more skullcap shaped -- e.g. here is Charles I's nightcap: https://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/81I6rta3SLes78ZoB8clOg
and an Elizabethan example: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1950.352

It's an interesting suggestion that during the era of men's wigs, gentlemen would be obliged to wear a nightcap around the house, and perhaps while relaxing in the evening, to cover the wig-less head both as a matter of appearance and in order to keep warm! (Much like the dressing-gown, which was worn while fully dressed as an indoor substitute for tailored -- and possibly stiffly-skirted -- coats.)

I haven't been able to find any actual museum examples of the Scrooge-type nightcap, but it certainly seems to be the one described in "The Pickwick Papers" (where I note that it is tied on with strings -- certainly the only method of retaining a nightcap on one's head in bed that I have discovered!)
http://www.dickens-online.info/the-pickwick-papers-page201.html

It looks as if it may have been very much a Victorian fashion, though.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nJSmCQAAQBAJ&pg=PT353

[watervole]

I wonder if the long triangular night cap evolved to go with the dressing gown worn around the house? Here, the wrapping the end round the neck idea would make more sense.

[igenlode]

I wonder if the long triangular night cap evolved to go with the dressing gown worn around the house? Here, the wrapping the end round the neck idea would make more sense.

Perhaps, but I've never heard of anyone wearing that kind of nightcap other than in bed (whereas it was quite normal for a gentleman to sit around in the library in his dressing-gown over waistcoat, shirt and trousers -- like Sherlock Holmes -- and then put on his jacket before leaving the house for a more formal occasion). I think the smart embroidered cylindrical caps were intended for daytime wear, but not the dangly shirt-tail type ones. Coming downstairs in one's nightcap and nightshirt is the stuff of comedy and emergency.

And I suspect the 'round the neck' theory was proposed by someone who had never actually tried it. You'd need a very long tail indeed to dangle down far enough beyond the nape of the neck to go all the way round the throat (another good sixteen inches or so in addition to double the head height), so in the illustrations you'd be seeing people with nightcaps hanging to waist level...

This pattern (circa 1838) specifies an intended height of 11.5 inches from brim to tip, which wouldn't even reach the collar.

[kotturinn]

No, I have nothing from the 19th century either. The oldest item I own is the suit my mother got married in in 1943, but I don't actually know whether that was new or second hand then. I can't wear it, she was 5' 4" and a modern size 12/14ish, I'm 5'8" and a 16/18 most of the time.

[igenlode]

I have the lace slip that I *assume* my mother wore under her wedding-dress (I can't imagine her ever purchasing such a garment for any other purpose, and when I found it after her death it was clearly almost entirely unworn) -- but I know that the dress itself was hired. She was very practical and they were short of money (and in those days you actually had to hurry up and get married before you could set up house together, rather than cohabiting for years while you saved up for a twenty-thousand-pound wedding to fulfil the bride's fantasies!) She didn't see any point in buying an expensive dress that would by definition only ever be of use on one occasion.

[vera_j]

I haven´t bought anything new for ages - apart from several pieces of necessary underwear and new winter boots. Like you, I still wear rather old but nice things. And every year I provide some items to a local charity. Both my daughter and daugher-in-law swap clother and shoes for children among other moms around.

[watervole]

Swapping clothes round friends and family is always good.

Children grow out of so much before they wear them out.

[igenlode]

I think everything I'm wearing at the moment was acquired second-hand (currently including vest, socks and pants!) except for my custom-made -- and very expensive -- shoes. Those last about fifteen years with (also very expensive) resoling, but the leather of the uppers does eventually wear through at the creases. The ones I have on are a replica of the first pair I ever ordered, about twenty years ago, and they've all been made on the same last ever since.

The woollen jumper I'm wearing was originally bought a very long time ago for my brother when he was a teenager, but he grew out of it -- being shorter, I inherited it!

I actually have a physical embarrassment of clothes in that I have trouble fitting them all into my wardrobe; this is partly because I don't do the washing very often and need sufficient shirts/underwear etc. to survive between washing-days (i.e. until I have accumulated a full load), partly because I don't like throwing things away and tend to have a lot of pretty worn-out clothing hanging on for the moment when it will be definitely beyond repair, and partly because people give clothes away to me that need repairing, because they know I can fix and make use of them. I'm not entirely sure that acquiring large numbers of second-hand clothes counts as reducing consumption...

[watervole]

Your story about your brother's jumper reminds me of a jumper that my mother-in-law bought her husband. NO use to him after he died, and it was too big for my husband.

But it fitted my dad perfectly, and he wore it for years!

Makes sense to wait for a full load - it's more energy efficient.

MY wardrobe is very like yours. full of second-hand clothes and things that I keep on repairing.

I think the key point is to reduce the production of new clothes, and I think you're succeeding in that very well!

[ranunculus]

I've been doing my best to meet your challenge of last year; not to buy any new clothes until I've worn out the old ones. I haven't completely followed that, but it has cut my clothes buying a lot, not that I ever bought that much. I'm still buying new jeans in the one brand and style that works for me, but I swear I'm wearing them until they are truly worn down to threadbare fabric and holes. Then I compost them in the garden.

[watervole]

That's really great!

You've clearly made a big cut, and that's something that really helps make a difference.

If you're wearing the jeans until they're threadbare, then I can't ask for more.

(some people find it easy to get second-hand jeans, but I'd imagine you want practical ones rather than fashion ones!)

I compost cotton and wool clothes as well.

[bugshaw]

Interesting one to think about. I bought a lot more clothes in my teens and 20s; changing shape, changing environments professional and social, still finding a style so trying lots of things I didn't stick with, a feeling I wanted to try some new look for each party. Buying a lot of t-shirts to support the bands I was seeing, or the cons I was going to. There's so much communication-by-t-shirt at that age - in that frantic meet-everyone period, each shirt can spark a conversation and perhaps a new friend, it's worth displaying as many interests as possible.

Since mid 30s it's been much more settled; for the office job I needed to expand my blouses/trousers/jackets wardrobe, and for the sound work I needed a lot more dark neutrals, tops long enough to not expose my belly when I lifted my arms up (my previous brighter wardrobe was a problem - camera would ask who was spilling pink onto the set, and it would be me...). Fewer social occasions, and I choose something that's nice rather than something new. I'm much better at only buying things that will work and I'll get plenty of wear from. And some of my clothes I owned in the previous house, which was 18 years ago now :-)

So it's much easier with my current lifestyle and established wardrobe to not buy new things. Last year I mostly bought thermals and leggings :-)

[watervole]

You think carefully about what you buy, and get far more use from what you do buy than when you were younger.

I guess peer pressure is especially strong when people are younger - the new outfit for each party is probably still a common desire in some age groups. I never thought about environmental issues as a teenager - wasn't even aware of the problems. I'm not sure anyone really was back then.

I guess I'm lucky in that I've never had a job where there was a dress code. In fact, for some jobs I've had, my preferred Boho style fitted in very well.

I used to buy a lot of con t-shirts, etc.

I find I'm now consciously wearing them to use them up - they make a very useful underlayer in winter, and a comfy top in summer.

I regularly wear the 'Froody' t-shirt I got at a freebie at the con where you and I were roomies. I think it's probably got another year or two's wear in it yet. (I've actually got two of them - I think you may have given me yours as it didn't fit you.)

Thermals are a positive environmental choice as they mean you don't need to have the thermostat set too high at home. The gain on heating emissions is greater than that of the thermals.

[word_geek]

This one, I'm terrible at. I've never been someone who bought a lot of clothes, especially after I did a huge declutter in my 30s and acquired a capsule wardrobe instead. But I don't have the knack for charity shops. My husband can walk in and find exactly what he was looking for, plus the occasional fabulous find. I find charity shop clothing rails to be utterly overwhelming and cannot focus enough to find stuff there. TK Maxx is the same--I was not made for fast fashion either.

The one thing I can do is keep clothes going for ages (I have a jumper from Richards, which I bought when I was still a student, and I'm 47 now, and a pair of Kurt Geiger shoes from the same era). I wear T-shirts and similar into the ground, but the rest of my stuff is usually in good enough nick to pass to a charity shop when I change size or my clothing needs change. So at least it's mostly not going to landfill.

[watervole]

Sounds to me like you're doing pretty well. If you never buy many clothes and keep them going for ages, that's the main aim of the game.

Sometimes, the staff will help in a charity shop if it's not busy.

I remember once, going in and saying 'Please help me, I need something smart in a size 14 in black for a funeral."

They came up trumps - I wasn't really in a good place to choose it myself.

[damerell]

My oldest known-age T-shirt is 1993, and I haven't bought any T-shirts for the last 18 months because I haven't been to any gigs.

However (as I was reminded recently when a freezing cold saddle rivet pressed itself lovingly against my inner thigh) riding a bicycle does rather seem to make for regular jeans-replacement.

[watervole]

Well, if you're riding a bike a lot, you're probably making good carbon saving on other fronts, so that probably outweighs the worn out trousers.

Actually, I don't know if you've ever tried a ladies' saddle, but some of them are a lot less wearing on trousers... (less of a knife edge between the legs)

And more comfy to sit on!

[damerell]

For about 20 years I've used Brooks B-17 Narrow leather saddles (albeit vexingly they became hip a few years ago and are now about three times the usual price, so I may have to change my mind) - "narrow" is relative to the standard Brooks, they are much wider than what the late great Jobst Brandt called "ass hatchets".
However, I suspect if anything a wider saddle is more prone to wear away at one's trousers.

[watervole]

Ah, but some saddles have nothing between the legs at all. I remember using one in Germany that was just an oval shape. Very comfy. More like sitting on a stool - but probably not ideal for taking fast corners....