Lisa Barrington
Me & Charity Chic – Flying in the face of Fashion
I've always been a fan of Charity Shops. Inherently because you get a lot for your money (the ethos of the Primark generation), but moreover because they house a veritable treasure trove of, well, treasure - the likes of which I could never find or afford to buy anywhere else!
Another reason is the element of chance. I seem to have a style (of sorts) which rather lends itself to outfits being thrown together at short notice from a bunch of colours, patterns & fabrics which may or may not match or fit (initially). I admit that I am also a pretty average size with quite small feet – which again, lends itself to this type of shopping.
Finally, the reason I love second-hand so much is the idea that every item tells a story – as profound as a jilted lover vengefully disposing of his partner’s belongings or as superficial as a wardrobe unable to accommodate a new change in the fashions.
Despite this, proposing to live for an entire year without so much as a new pair of pyjamas was still a very daunting prospect!
The Road to S&S – Manchester, Fashion & Me
I spent much of my adult life looking for a place to settle & draw inspiration. Spending a year or so in London, Paris, Nice & Leicester amongst others, I was enticed to Manchester with an exciting job prospect - which turned out to be a disappointment. Manchester, however, was not and has become my happy home ever since.
I also met Rose at this role, so I will always be grateful for this.
Becoming increasingly frustrated with said job, I shut my eyes one day & thought ‘what would I do if I had all the money in the world & two years left to live?’ easy, I thought, I’d learn to make my own clothes, travel round the world & try to make it a bit better’
The next day, I walked out of that office & into the nearest college to enrol. The world travelling is on hold for a later plan.
My journey begins
A tutor at my new college suggested I attend a lecture being given by a well-known budget clothes manufacturer, whilst remarking flippantly,
‘You could ask him for a job if you don’t mind the slave labour…’
Intrigued & perturbed, I attended & listened to a designer suit-clad man carefully manoeuvre his way through his prepared material, declaring with pride how his company’s cheap copy-catwalk fashion enable a style/price-conscious British public to dress in the latest designer looks (they use the same production lines as Armani, no less).
As the evening drew to a close, the man seemed a little more tense, and the audience, a little more animated.
And then the onslaught began, ‘How do you monitor working conditions in your factories?’ ‘What measures have you got in place for external audits?’ How do you implement health & safety checks?’ ‘are your factory workers paid a living wage?’….
The embarrassingly vague answers which ensued confirmed what I had sadly began to realise. I began investigating further & sadly discovered that this was far from uncommon in the industry. Discovering facts such as these amongst others:
ADD LINK TO ‘ETHICAL FACTS PAGE’
A trip later that month to one of Manchester’s many commemorative exhibitions on the abolition of the slave trade further fuelled my intrigue. Proudly displaying the date of the Manchester Cotton trade’s cessation of using slavery, I started to question, has it really ended?