Life

Lynette Fay: Fashions fade, wardrobes expand & our planet suffers

Ironically, I was in my cousin’s boutique when the news broke on Tuesday morning that Karl Lagerfeld had died after a short illness. Lagerfeld, as we have been told many times this week, was creative director for Chanel and Fendi.

Lynette Fay

Lynette Fay

Lynette is an award winning presenter and producer, working in television and radio. Hailing from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, she is a weekly columnist with The Irish News.

Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld died earlier this week
Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld died earlier this week Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld died earlier this week

MY COUSIN, Shauna Fay – or 'our Shauna' – of the dress fame got straight on the phone to verify that the breaking story was true. She and her colleague Anna then proceeded to wax lyrical about the genius of Lagerfeld.

His legacy has split opinion. I have long coveted any piece of Chanel clothing, and can only dream of owning an original. There are investment pieces of clothing, and then there’s Chanel. I would need to re-mortgage to buy anything. I don’t crave it that much!

At the opposite end of the scale, ‘fast/disposable clothing’ is not just part of our lives, it’s a big problem. Most of us have clothes that we forget about because we have so many. When a piece of clothing is admired, often our first reply is what it cost and where we got it. Am I right?

How many of us are guilty of buying a new top or shirt to wear out on a Saturday night, whilst having a wardrobe already heaving with clothes? I stress that this problem doesn’t apply to women only.

The 40-somethings among you might remember the buying a new top to go out when big nights out happened every couple of months. I can’t remember how many nights to Clubland in the 90s seemed to be sponsored by Ultimate in Thomas St Dungannon because everyone appeared to be wearing the same top!

I simply didn’t have money for good clothes when I was a teenager/student. I’m not sure that many did. I had a summer job picking strawberries once and used that money to buy my first pair of Levi’s. I wore them until they were threadbare.

When I went to Galway to university, the trendy item of clothing to have in your daily wardrobe was a pair of Susst jeans (usually bell bottoms). We didn’t care for ‘going out tops’ and I remember wearing an M&S dress I got in the sale for a tenner to many, many university ‘balls’

When I started earning my own money, the single biggest temptation I faced was buying clothes. I have definitely spent too much money on clothes over the years. There was a time when I would not have worn the same thing twice in a month, never mind in a week.

Imagine being caught on camera wearing the same thing twice?! When I present events or TV, I have bought what I’m wearing. I used to panic-buy a lot, but have calmed down now. I have finally realised that the world is not going to implode if I wear something twice on camera or on stage. What a ridiculous mindset to have had in the first place.

Presently, despite allegedly having a ‘big clear-out’ last month, I know that I have too many clothes, and I have banned myself from buying any more unless I really need them. It’s difficult. The shops are now full of the glorious, fresh shades of spring, but I have to constantly remind myself that I have ample clothing and footwear to last me for many years!

As I look at the rails of ‘stuff’ I have, that episode of Sex In The City where Carrie can’t afford a mortgage because she has bought too many pairs of shoes comes to mind. Although, I don’t own any Manolos.

Apart from the money spent on clothes, I now realise that by treating our clothing as disposable, we are destroying the environment. One newspaper headline this week read that the UK fashion industry is a bigger source of carbon emissions than aviation and shipping. Let’s think about that the next time we ‘fancy’ a new top.

A parliamentary report has recommended that the introduction of new taxes could help end this throwaway culture that we have embraced. Fast fashion means that we over-buy and under-use clothes. When trends change, the unwanted clothes most often go to landfill.

The production and disposal of clothes is having a detrimental effect on the environment. We turn a blind eye to how are clothes are made too.

It has been an interesting week for the fashion industry. Whilst I can’t afford Chanel, I intend to consider what I purchase more carefully going forward.