✨#10: How Second Hand September helped me fall in love with my clothes again
Six lessons I (re-)learned from dressing second hand for a month.
This month is Second Hand September.
Well, I guess I should probably use the past tense, seeing that it’s the 30th of September already.
Nothing like a good old deadline to motivate an ADHD brain. 😬
But better late than never, hey?
I’ve been shopping second-hand only for nearly 3 years, but lately I’d gotten into a bit of a rut. So I decided to use Second Hand September as an opportunity to have a bit more fun with my clothes, try out new combinations and “shop my closet” aka dig through my piles of clothes to unearth and wear some forgotten treasures.
And (this is the scary part), I would share some of my outfits online for fun and to hopefully inspire some of my friends and family to also embrace second-hand shopping.
Little did I know how much I’d enjoy this month and how much I would learn.
Here are 6 lessons I (re-)learned from dressing 2nd hand for a month:
1. I have nothing plenty to wear.
I can often be found standing in front of my wardrobe, shouting “I have nothing to wear!”, while frantically pulling out clothes and quickly dumping them on the bed behind me in an ever-growing mountain of every shade of pink fabric that threatens to tumble and bury me alive any moment!!
Ok, that’s maybe a bit exaggerated, but not as much as I wish it was.
The biggest lie in this little tale, however, is that I have “nothing to wear”. 🤥
I have, in fact, plenty to wear.
It’s never a lack of actual garments that makes it hard to get dressed, but a lack of imagination or inspiration. Or I’m trying to dress for all eventualities, especially during shoulder seasons like this month, when I swing between “too cold” and “boiling hot” every five minutes.
Second Hand September really encouraged me to “shop my closet” as they say (who are they? I guess the slow fashion experts of the world).
It helped me remember some clothes I’d almost forgotten about, to try to wear them in new ways. I even wore a few things for the very first time, even though I’ve had them for years and was considering donating or selling them.
Like this sparkly wrap top that I found in a charity shop a few years ago and never wore, although I love how sparkly and soft it is. I paired it with a denim dress, sparkly tights and hand-knit woolly socks.
2. Dressing up vs getting dressed.
I work for myself and fully remotely. One of the biggest perks for me is that I can wear whatever I want.
I don’t have to wear “proper” office attire, no tight suits or skirts. No torturous high heels. No grey, beige or greige to be found anywhere in my wardrobe.
If I wanted to (and I have in the past), I could wear pyjamas to my calls with my members, and nobody would care too much.
The downside of this is that it’s all too easy to get really lazy with clothes, especially if I have no other plans that day. I’d end up wearing my same few favourite fleeces every day in winter, or the same rotation of comfy dresses in the summer.
This challenge really reminded me that there’s a huge difference between simply getting dressed and dressing up! Dressing up was one of my favourite activities as a child, and I still love it to this day; I just have fewer occasions to do so.
Or do I? 🤔
What if every single day were an occasion to get dressed up?
What if picking an outfit was an opportunity to have fun, be playful, colourful and whimsical every single morning?
Now we’re talking.
This month, I made a real effort to dress up on an ordinary Tuesday, even if I just had some Zoom calls or needed to pop to the bakery.
Life is short, after all! If it’s time to “use the good candles” as Instagram reassures me it is, then it’s definitely time to wear your favourite party dress, even if you’re just going to the post office.
It brings joy to other people too, as I am reminded every time someone tells me they love my pink cowboy boots or rainbow patchwork jacket.
If you need more encouragement, please go ahead and follow Jessie Jolles on Instagram, the absolute queen of getting “fancy for no reason”.
3. I found inspiration in unusual places.
Clothes, fashion, textiles, accessories, it’s all art, isn’t it?
If that’s true, then we kind of make art every time we get dressed, right?
Ok that sounds suuuuper pretentious, but hear me out!
If that’s too cringe, then let’s call it a creative process. After all, when you get dressed you mix different colours, textures, shapes and layers together.
And as with every creative process, you need inspiration, which thankfully can come from anywhere!
Like a children’s book, for example.
I absolutely adore kids’ books and have wanted to start my own collection for years. I recently bought my very first book, it’s called Frida the Rock and Roll Moth by Kim Hillyard. Not only is it a heartwarming tale about finding your confidence and being your own weird, true self, but Frida is also an absolute fashion icon if you ask me:
I stumbled upon the book one Saturday morning and decided to use Frida as my inspiration that day. Here’s the outfit I put together, which was one of my favourites all month (despite being waaaay too warm for the surprisingly sunny September day).
Another time, I dressed like a pirate, just because, why not? Pirates are awesome. 🏴☠️
So here’s my invitation to look for inspiration in weird and wonderful places, I’d love to see what you come up with!
4. Be weird! You make your own rules.
People often comment on my clothes, because they are pretty loud compared to the majority of people. And I don’t mind it at all, in fact I love chatting about clothes (as you might have guessed by now).
One thing people often say is how my shoes match my outfit and I always reply with “yeah, because if everything is pink, it always goes together”. 🩷
And I’m not even joking.
Pink is my favourite colour, closely followed by purple, orange and green 🩷💜🧡💚. I also love prints, mainly florals, paisley and leopard prints. And I love all things sparkly, and not only at night. Sparkles are allowed all day, every day.
I have an almost allergic reaction to the “colour” beige, and don’t even get me started on “greige”.
So whenever I read fashion advice about pairing neutrals with “pops of colour” I get unreasonably annoyed. 😡
To quote Leena Norms “a pop? Is that all we get?”.
Beige, white, cream and navy might work for some people, but they don’t work for me.
My neutrals are pink and leopard, and that’s how I like it. Almost all my shoes are pink, so are my coats and bags.
“Neutral” is a made-up term anyway - it’s not a scientific concept.
So pick your neutrals. It could be orange with yellow polka dots, who cares!? You get to decide your own fashion “rules” or throw out the rules altogether!
5. It helped me celebrate circularity.
My love of clothes is for life, and I’ve had some items for 15+ years. Others come and go, for a season or a reason. And that’s ok.
I’ve also got some absolute favourites that I just don’t reach anymore.
And here’s my little secret: I used to feel really guilty about that.
Almost like I was hurting my favourite picnic trousers’ feelings when I didn’t wear them all summer. Or like I broke my green dress’ heart when I chose the purple one instead.
I know that’s silly.
But is it actually? Or can it be helpful to think about our clothes in this way?
It reminds me of that episode in Friends where Joey works at the Christmas tree farm and Phoebe is devastated when she finds out the old, unsold trees go into the Chipper and will never fulfil their Christmas destiny.
That’s how I feel about my chronically unworn clothes. They don’t get to fulfil their fashion destiny!! And who am I to deny them this?
It only makes sense to put them back into circulation so somebody else can enjoy and treasure them as they were meant to.
Plus, it keeps them out of landfill (aka the Chipper).
This month I made a conscious effort to release some of my old fashion friends back into the world.
I experimented with Vinted (I uploaded 22 items, sold 12, and made £112.50; and spent £52 of that on Vinted).
I also took a whole bag of clothes to a Clothes Swap last weekend. And I have another bag ready for the next Swap or for the charity shop.
It makes me happy to know that others can enjoy these pieces again, there’s still plenty life left in them.
Spoiler: the Friends episode ends with Monica and Joey surprising Phoebe with an apartment full of dead trees they saved from the Chipper, so they could fulfil their Christmas destiny. 🥹
6. Second-hand shopping makes me more creative.
Having limited access to clothes (we only have 7 charity shops in Frome) means I never know what I’ll find. Often nothing, sometimes an unexpected treasure.
And sometimes, and this is my favourite, things that are interesting but not quite right.
I might love the colour of a sweatshirt but not the print. I might like the print and fabric of a dress, but not the cut. I might like the cosy fabric, but the pants are too small.
That’s when it’s time to upcycle and have some fun! Second Hand September reminded me that I love making, upcycling and mending.
Here’s one of my favourite upcycled outfits of all time:
We already have enough garments on the planet to clothe the next 6 generations, so there’s an almost endless supply of raw materials for us to get creative with. Instead of seeing this as a limit to what we can buy new, I see it as a huge creative opportunity to make these garments last as long as possible and breathe as many new lives into them as we can.
Upcycling also doesn’t have to be complicated; you don’t even need to sew. I dyed a bunch of clothes this year, and it’s like having a whole new garment. And don’t even get me started on tie-dying!
A tiny act of resistance and joy
I have often worried that it’s frivolous to spend so much time on clothes, finding, making, trying them on.
But then I’d remind myself that the fashion industry is one of the most polluting on the planet, of the toll it takes on people and the environment. And while that used to make me feel hopeless, I now see it as a huge opportunity.
After all, we all wear clothes every single day.
So every day is a new opportunity to stage a tiny act of rebellion, to give a tiny finger to the status quo of fast fashion.
And have fun with it!
Second Hand September helped me fall back in love with the clothes I own, and clothes in general.
I love the colours, textures, different types of fabric, embellishments, weird and wonderful combinations.
And I love how clothes can completely change the mood I’m in. If I’m feeling in a funk and it’s grey and gloomy out there, I just don a pair of bright floral dungarees over a rainbow striped top and voila, my mood is completely shifted!
And even better, wearing whimsical, colourful clothes also cheers up the people around you!
It’s one of the easiest ways of spreading a tiny bit of joy and cheer in the world, simply by getting dressed.
What a wonderful world it would be if we all dressed with this in mind, hey?
I’d love to hear about your favourite piece of clothing, where you found it, what you love about it, how it makes you feel! Please share in the comments!
And if you like to read about the future of fashion, you might like my piece about the Clueless Closet of my dreams:
If I haven't said it before, I need to say it now: I have always absolutely adored your style and creativity with clothes. It's such a celebration of expression and personality. It gives everyone around you permission to do the same--and this coming from someone who is painfully shy with style! Adding the layer of second-hand and mending--just brilliance. It makes the revolution irresistible. I want to see a public service campaign against fast fashion with you smiling in patterns, pink, and upcycled clothes as the spokesperson. Can anyone else see the billboards??
I was reading this on the tram and I smiled so big when I read the part about Phoebe and the Christmas tree destiny 🥹 also, you “only” have 7 charity shops in Frome!? I think we have 7 in Gothenburg and there’s only two where I usually find stuff!