I bought my next thing!

And it did NOT go as planned. But fashion cannot be all about sufficiency

Wearing two of this year’s five new items. Luckily, the first purchase was so versatile I can wear it with everything. The second, however…

Limiting yourself to just five new clothing items a year is not easy. Deprivation, resourcefulness, denial, smug satisfaction, there’s a gamut of emotions that run through it. I find it leeching into so many other decisions I make now: What’s it made of? How long will it last? Do I need it?

However before we get on with the insights, the conscious consumerism and the planet saving stories (all good stuff, but we are here for fashion) let’s get to the shopping. It’s the end of May which means it’s time for something new. Oh, at last!

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Quick reminder of how we are doing it (this is only a suggestion): splitting the year into five seasons, with one new purchase allowed each season

For my second purchase, I chose a pair of gold silk cargo pants. Specifically, A Perfect Nomad’s gold silk cargo pants. I wore them for a party in Ibiza last week, where we launched the magazine I edit, The Xarraca Journal, and I styled them with my first purchase, the With Nothing Underneath white shirt, and a black jacket I borrowed off my friend and business partner Daniela Agnelli, (pic at the top). They are glorious - weighty (they are mixed with hemp), glamorous, ridiculously comfy and expensive (we will come to why in a minute) but before we get on to what’s problematic about all this, let’s just have a moment of appreciation for these beautiful things:

Gold silk and hemp cargo pants, A Perfect Nomad. In love.

I adore them, but you know the planning that went into the first purchase? I audited my wardrobe, I found the gaps, I identified the problem, I researched the ‘white shirt’ market, I tried hundreds on, and I carefully strategised and acquired the perfect white shirt. It is working very hard and successfully in my wardrobe (no stains yet).

Item number two didn’t happen like that. It was an impulse purchase - exactly what you’re not meant to do. Five months of not going into shops, staring wistfully at magazine pages and looking mournfully at friends’ new purchases had morphed into a strange new feeling: stasis. My new status quo was ‘I was not buying’. I felt calmer, richer, and I was discovering all sorts of gems in my wardrobe I had never given a chance before. The wild new pastures of conscious consumerism!

But when I visited Agora, the fashion store I co-run in Ibiza, I cracked. Surrounded by all these beautiful things (which admittedly all tell an inspirational story about sustainability), I just couldn’t take it any longer. I spied the pants, I whipped them on and then I didn’t take them off.

I am not advocating this, but lives are never simple and straightforward. I split my time between London and Spain, and as the climate in the two countries is very different, so are the fashion sensibilities. I quite often turn up there in my jeans, blazer and heels and everyone else is wafting around in kaftans and sandals. The denim jump suit I board the plane wearing is wholly inappropriate on touch down. Ibiza fashion is made for hot weather, for padding around on rocks and beaches, still glamorous enough that you can rock up at a restaurant table or a dance floor, but also something you can peel off to jump in the sea at a moment’s notice. (I know, it’s tough out there).

Agora, the luxury and sustainability fashion store I co-founded with Vogue fashion director, Daniela Agnelli.

As I spend most of my time in London, my Ibiza wardrobe is often lacking. My business partner, the Vogue fashion director Daniela Agnelli, always has the Ibiza look nailed: some floaty silky harem pants, a billowing cotton shirt, several pendulous and meaningful necklaces, a single diamond Cartier jaguar in her ear. I’m always racing to keep up.

So last week I was over there, mining the store, and there they were: this beautiful pair of gold cargo pants. Vegan, or ‘peace’ silk as its also known, (it’s a special way they have of nurturing the silk worms which allows them to be released afterwards and not die), mixed with hemp, which is very easy to grow and doesn’t need much water, and what’s more, from a local island brand: A Perfect Nomad. (Side note: more than 30% of Agora brands are local because that’s how businesses should thrive: in the community you find them, supporting those around them. A famous futurist and architect, Thomas Ermacora, calls it ‘Participatory Placemaking’. I know this because he’s a neighbour of ours on the island, and often visits the store. I had mistaken his beard and beads for a local hippie, but then he visited for a talk at the Intelligent Change festival, and I discovered he advises the US government on AI. That’s Ibiza for you.)

Upsides: the cuff at the bottom of the pant means they can be worn barefoot, they look great with espadrille wedges, and also pair with some black strappy sandals I have which made me realise they were the perfect cross over piece - I could wear them in London as much as Ibiza. Sold.

Downsides: They were bought without thinking, and they were expensive, £320. Small run, independent labels, made with sustainable fabrics by well paid workers cost more money. Will I regret this purchase for not being fully thought through? So many times this year I have wanted to buy something, held off, and then found a few weeks later the ‘need’ has passed. Also the silk, even though it’s mixed with a nice heavy hemp, makes them delicate. How can you have a hard working 74 piece sufficiency wardrobe (see the details on the climate report on which this recommendation is based) when some of those items are precious and should only be saved for odd occasions? Already I’ve noticed there’s a pull on one of the legs from when I sat on an unsanded wooden bench. I also can’t see these pants working in the depths of winter, (but they will work for a Christmas party, right?).

What this means is that my remaining 3 items need to be resilient and hard working. They need to be something that can be worn everywhere all day long and nights too. This rash (although gleeful) purchase is going to help inform my next ones. In fact, I know what the next purchase is, I’ve known for about two years, as I have always wanted it. It’s going to be a house coat, and the MISTRESS of house coats is Alice Temperley, of Temperley London. She wears hers all day and all night long, over velvet suits, slip dresses and her nightie. Alice lives between Somerset in bucolic rural idyll, and Mayfair where her gorgeous shop is. She is also often travelling - Turkey, Ibiza, California - and has found her house coat to be the perfect solution: “I can literally screw it up and throw it in my travel bag.” But more on this next time.

Alice in her housecoat - from feeding time to bed time

Aside from the impulse purchase, here’s how I have coped over the last few months. I have begun to appreciate what I have much more. I’ve rediscovered forgotten wardrobe favourites (a Versace Versus silk bomber I acquired 10 years ago, perfect for spring time weather) and have been getting a lot of wear out of an ancient Chanel Breton top, which reminds me how important those classic timeless pieces are.

Finally, I want to make this point. I have noticed on the many occasions I have wanted to buy something, that shopping had become a comfort hobby for me. I want to buy things for myself as treats, or rewards, or comforts. It’s not that I need them. Not being able to buy what I want when I want has made me think more about my style. I can’t afford to make mistakes, and as I enter this new universe of climate awareness, where I (we) simply cannot afford to have a relationship with fashion like we used to, the choices need to be smarter, more on point.

But we absolutely cannot lose the emotion behind it either, and this is important. ‘Sufficiency wardrobe’ is all well and good, but it must also be one that gives and spreads joy. Frances Clark, the founder behind A Perfect Nomad, says this: “I design our collections based upon how I would want to feel. Elevated, confident and effortless. I design what I love, and that gets translated by a small family run factory in Jaipur in fabrics that do minimal harm to the planet. I hope your trousers take a little bit of our free spirited island DNA to London.”

I think they will. I certainly don’t love them any the less for being precious. I may even love them more.

How has it been going for you? Any mistakes? Any pleasures? Dying to hear!

Until next time,

Tiff