Monday, September 23, 2013

LIZ JONES: This year I bought just SIX items of clothing

8:12 PM  Koomhoo  No comments

 



PUBLISHED:


19:12 EST, 22 September 2013




|

UPDATED:


20:06 EST, 22 September 2013




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Liz’s pick: A nude Victoria Beckham dress, bought at a discount from Net-A-Porter for £1,000



After seeing 50-odd fashion shows in London, where designers showed completely sheer dresses and pyjamas as outerwear, I found that it’s very easy to fall out of love with designer fashion.


‘Who would want to wear an apron dress or a backless sweater?’ I wrote.


But the truth is, I love beautiful clothes. I will fall in love with a dress, have its photo on my computer desktop and look at it daily.


I might then visit said dress in store and stroke it.


For me, buying a garment, a pair of shoes or a bag is a serious business that takes a lot of thought.


If I leaf through my wardrobe, each item tells a story. I remember when I bought it, and when I wore it.


The other day, I put on a pair of Helmut Lang tuxedo trousers, and I was transported to the day I bought them: Matches, 1998, a few days after I landed a great job. Clothes are not disposable to me, they are milestones, memories.


And so it annoyed me last week when a female newspaper columnist — the sort of woman who probably has a big mortgage, children, a car, nice furniture, probably takes holidays, drinks good bottles of wine, eats out regularly and has a husband who plays golf — laid into designer fashion.


‘Dame Vivienne Westwood says the poor should buy fewer clothes. Don’t get six cheap items, she counsels, when you can invest in one good one.


‘Think “quality not quantity”. Ah, don’t you love it when wealthy fashion designers spout this sort of stuff?


‘After all, why buy three £2 vest tops from Primark when you can get one of theirs for £60? It makes no sense.’ 


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My point, after some very unscientific fact finding, is that we shouldn’t judge what someone spends and puts on in order to face the world (picture posed by model)



Never mind the rather important point

that women and children in the developing world are denied a living wage

so that columnists like this can revel in their frugality.


So I decided to conduct an experiment. I would add up what I have spent on designer clothes in 2013 and I would ask my friend, Daphne, who is a childless freelance PR, who thinks she can’t afford labels and only shops on the High Street, to list every item she has bought this year — to see if this would prove the mantra I live by: ‘buy less, buy better’.


This is my list: A nude Victoria Beckham dress, bought at a discount from Net-A-Porter for £1,000. A pair of Louboutin shoe boots, in the Browns sale, £400. J Brand jeans, £230. A pale pink Rick Owens jacket, also in the sale, £200. A black Stella McCartney T-shirt with embellished collar, £500. A Kenzo jacket, £280 in the sale. That’s it.


The only mistake is the Stella top: the embellishment snags my hair every time I put it on. But I still wear it. Grand total: £2,610.


Now, to my friend. Her list is too long to print here, so I’m only including highlights.


Alex Monroe for Evans necklace, £25: she bought three. A Next black shift, £45, and print top, £32. Shift dress, MS, £35. Clarks wedges, £50.


Celia Birtwell for Uniqlo tops, £12 —

she bought ten. Mary  Portas for Clarks snake heels, £50.


A dress with a

leopard collar, Dorothy Perkins, £35. She also spent £50 on 200 pairs

of knickers which (incredibly) she buys in bulk. She spent a total of

£744.


OK, she has many more items than I do. But does she love them? How do they make her feel?


‘Yes,

I love all my stuff,’ she says.‘I now buy less and only if I really

love it or if it’s a practical basic.’


(The next day she emailed to say

she had forgotten she also bought a Barbara Hulanicki for George cardi,

£14, MS waxed parka, £40, and State Of Mind yoga pants, £40. And

bought in Scotland yesterday: Monsoon polka-dot shirt dress, £45,

FF for Tesco kimono jacket, £14, Converse trainers, £42, and £200

on Bravissimo bras, which brought the total to £1,139)


‘I usually spend way more than this!’ she told me.


Hmm,

well. I don’t know if I would ever need 200 pairs of knickers, or ten

tops from Uniqlo, or anything at all from Clarks, but the point is that

this woman’s shopping is her choice. She is doing her best within a

budget.


My point, after

some very unscientific fact finding, is that we shouldn’t judge what

someone spends and puts on in order to face the world. It is all down to

personal choice. It’s too simplistic to say designer fashion is somehow

sinful.


What is bad is

women putting other women down for living their life the way they want

to — and believing that the only right way to live is their way.


 LIZ JONES SPIES ON… CATH KIDSTON, HARROGATE


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Cath Kidston has stores in ten countries, with 60-plus in the UK



‘It all started with an ironing-board cover.’


Cath Kidston is celebrating 20 years in business, and gosh she has done well out of making floral-print oven gloves — given the gorgeous honey-stoned Cotswold mansion featured sycophantically in Vogue this month, where the interior designer reveals she has never tried to keep women in the kitchen (she herself owns three dishwashers).


Well, that’s OK then. I have only ever bought two Cath Kidston items: a washbag for my mum when she went into hospital, and an ironing-board cover.


Some people like to brand her as the successor to Laura Ashley, but I don’t think that’s true: Laura Ashley was about being free-spirited, not twee.


Cath Kidston has stores in ten countries, with 60-plus in the UK. I chose to visit the one in Harrogate. The shop is small and eye-wateringly bright, crammed with florals.


I asked the young sales assistant if there was anything plain, and she didn’t laugh.


And when I asked about toiletries, she gave the stock line: ‘If it’s not on the shelf, then we don’t do it.’ But they do give students a 10 per cent discount, which is something.


LIZ’S VERDICT: 8/10 (If you like floral and twee)





The comments below have not been moderated.


Liz, you spent 500 quid on a t-shirt? You have a brass neck whining continuously about being poor!



mimi

,


uk, United Kingdom,

24/9/2013 00:37


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But Liz, you’re clothes are not practical. Women like me need clothes to walk the dog, clothes to look after the grandchildren ( one a baby ) and more clothes when I am looking after aged relative. I need clothes that wash easily and well. They must stand up to a lot of wear, oh, and I also need a few for going out. Six expensive items would be no use to me. However cheap clothes from Primark do not stand the test of time, most women in my age bracket want affordable quality. We do not want really expensive items to sit in the wardrobe and drool over, we want to look attractive whilst getting on with everyday life. Is that too much to ask ?



Stonemaiden

,


Staffordshire,

23/9/2013 23:53


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I have not bought any clothes for over two years an I haven’t bought a coat for five years.



Chris

,


Herts, United Kingdom,

23/9/2013 23:00


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Where on earth can you buy 200 pairs of knickers for fifty quid? And how much did Liz’s imaginary friend spend? Did Liz start boring herself and give up on this article?

And for heavens sake woman, leave Cath Kidston alone. What did she ever do to you?!



Bothered and Bewildered

,


Lancashire,

23/9/2013 21:53


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So much of designer clothing is just not practical for everyday life. I go nowhere that I am in of high fashion.



Kaylee

,


Oakland,

23/9/2013 21:52


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Do yourself a favour and save your money for laser tattoo removal.



Bliss

,


Paris, France,

23/9/2013 21:44


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She is quite possibly the worst journalist ever….



Dr_Taylor

,


Bristol,

23/9/2013 21:16


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Bore off Liz. Sorry fellow posters,unoriginal comment I know,but its been a long day and I’m tired ! Really,who gives a rats rear end what this woman does,or doesn’t buy ?



susie m

,


brighton,

23/9/2013 21:09


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Who the hell buys 200 pairs of knickers? Are they disposable?!



Eowyn

,


Rohan,

23/9/2013 20:37


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She has complained endlessly before that she has no money and no friends. But yet again, she has contradicted herself. £2k plus is a lot of money for the average woman and where did this friend spring up from? To be a good liar you need a good memory or a good filing system so that you can cross reference previous “facts” in your previous articles. Is this something someone at the DM office can help her with?



Poppy999

,


all over the place, uk,

23/9/2013 20:36


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LIZ JONES: This year I bought just SIX items of clothing

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