I didn’t buy any clothes this month. That wouldn’t be a hardship for most people and it wasn’t much of a hardship for me, but I was surprised how much it changed my perspective.
On the day after publishing our article announcing our Dry January project, I was in Trunk in Marylebone as I’d had an appointment with Bryceland’s up the street. I was looking at a couple of different pairs of socks, reading the fibre content and trying to remember which brand I’d liked last time.
And then it hit me – it didn’t matter, because I couldn’t buy them. I couldn’t buy anything this month. Now, it wouldn’t be a big thing if I did allow myself socks, underwear and other basics as part of this project. Many people do as part of similar challenges. But the principle was rather freeing. I was now just an observer, considering the clothes in a completely abstract manner.
It felt quite relaxing as I wandered around the rest of the store, and then popped into John Simons. I was slightly afraid I’d stumble onto a once-in-a-lifetime piece of vintage, never to be offered again, but I didn’t. There were a few nice pieces, but they would be there next month. There was no hurry.
I am of course in a different position to many readers. I am professionally, necessarily, around beautiful clothes all the time. But I also know friends who say they look at clothes online pretty much every day – that it’s a form of entertainment to research something, to follow it on eBay, and then to buy it. I found it refreshing and calming to have all that taken away.
There was a slightly embarrassing moment a week later, when I ordered a shirt online and then had to return it. I didn’t remember in time to actually cancel the order, so I had to wait and receive it, want it, then sent it back. I almost wrote to the company to explain what was going on, that I was sure I’d buy it next month, but that sounded complicated and in the end I chickened out.
Here’s another interesting thing: it’s now February 2nd and I haven’t bought anything either. There wasn’t a queue of things waiting to be bought, a row of browser tabs waiting with shopping baskets, longing for completion. Nothing felt that necessary, nothing preyed on my mind for more than a few days, before fading into the subconscious.
I’m sure that will change. If I actively think about it, there is a pair of Yuketen boots in my size on eBay, and I wanted to get another Anderson & Sheppard blanket for my daughter’s room. But for the moment there’s a pleasant feeling of separation from all that, a slowing down and a change of focus.
The vast majority of readers will not, I’m sure, buy as many clothes as me or have a problem not buying anything. But I do know some that do and that do. And I think it’s a useful way to highlight more generally the need to buy carefully and considerately.
On Permanent Style, it spurred myself and other writers to focus on things like repairing, ageing and re-using in our articles last month. In fact there were so many ideas that several are going to push over into February, including one on an Hermes briefcase, one on a reader’s Wax Walker, and one on the care-and-repair one-stop-shop that is The Valet.
Rather like me, the effect has not switched off as soon as the calendar turned over.
Dry January was apparently a bigger thing for alcohol than it ever has been before. Pubs in the UK reported lower takings and the campaign group Alcohol Change reported a large number of people signing up.
We can probably take the latter with a pinch of salt, and I don’t want to see any pubs go under. But interestingly, the response from a lot of pubs has been to offer more non-alcoholic drinks, or to expand their business into family activities and other events, which feels healthy. It could be a way they could reclaim that position as the ‘third space’, the public space that has perhaps been taken over by coffee shops in recent years.
It’s good to step back, to be forced to change perspective. Thinking about it, our summer holiday effectively performs for the same role – for two to three weeks I’m completely cut off from clothing and retail, and it always feels like a healthy circuit-breaker.
Would I do it again? Quite possibly. Perhaps I might set myself a limit, like only things that are one-off like vintage, and then only one or two.
I’m not sure I would do it every year on Permanent Style, just because a twelfth of the year is quite a lot. There are several pieces I’ve been wanting to write this month, and couldn’t. If there’s been any frustration during Dry January, it’s been that – rather than not being able to shop.
But I genuinely think it has made a difference to how I look at clothing, and that surprised me. I didn’t think I needed much of a change – that this was mostly about Permanent Style and the message I wanted it to project. But it has given me a different perspective, just by imposing an artificial restriction. It feels calm, useful, and healthy.
How was it for you?
