2019 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

CAFCGirl

Laura_Elsewhere wrote: »

Oooh, nice one, CAFCgirl - definitely children's shoes are children's shoes - only 3, not 5 coupons. Plenty of smaller women during the war made their coupons go further by buying children's things when possible!

Pretty much me on a lot of clothing - particularly pyjamas, sweats and t-shirts - what 14\15 year olds are fed on these days for them to grow so big!? Hubby says I'm just horrendously small \short

PollyWollyDoodle

Interesting weekend with a friend and her lovely teenage daughter. Daughter wanted to get some holiday stuff and we went to a local "shopping outlet" place. Not somewhere I would normally go, I have never been into brands and I really don't understand why you would pay a premium price for a t-shirt which is advertising the name of the brand. Maybe its just me! :rotfl:

Teenager is vegetarian and trying to become vegan, her mum has had several food items refused because of palm oil, she has a well-developed social conscience. I said I am looking for a denim skirt, and she mentioned a well-known cheap clothing shop. I gently explained that I wouldn't shop there because of the employment practices.

I didn't want to spoil her pleasure in the new clothes she bought, and I don't think I did, but it was clearly a novel idea to her that buying clothes could also have ethical implications. I think for me that is almost as big a factor as cost these days. Just looking round this shopping outlet I was horrified at the volume of new clothing being purchased, a lot of it summer stuff that will only be worn a few times. Makes you think. I'm off to the charity shop!

Laura_Elsewhere

Polly, well done on managing to gently introduce the concept - I fear I'd have gone off on a lecturing rant and turned her the other direction by mistake!

both my nieces are in their mid/late 20s now, and buy a LOT less but for years they did assume a) they'd go abroad for holidays at least 2-3 times a year and b) they'd buy almost completely new wardrobes each trip.
I find it mesmerising, how different their world is - in my mid-20s I was an undergraduate so clothes came from Oxfam, homemade, or asked-for specially for Xmas or birthdays; hair was done in a mate's kitchen with enormous fun and experimentation. You might paint your toenails a few times a year for the fun of it. Holidays were a Railcard train-ticket to stay at your pal's home or going Youth Hostelling in someone's old banger which always broke down somewhere remote, or a borrowed grandparents' car which was a huge old boxy Rover that guzzled fuel...

My nieces both class themselves as on a low income and never having any money, but they both have monthly hair salon appointments at 70-80 quid, they have fortnightly manicures and pedicures and gel nails at 20-30 quid a go, they still have a couple of foreign package-holidays every year and still buy new clothes for any event, a gig, someone's wedding, about 4-6 times a year they "need" a new dress or outfit, shoes, bag, special hair and nails appt, the lot...

It's just so much more consumer-based than my 20s were, in the 1990s. I know I was a bit of a hippy and other people bought more, but all the same, the idea that someone who describes themselves as struggling financially can spend that much on salons and clothes - oh, and tanning salons in summer of course....

I dunno...

I'm obviously getting old now I'm 50

PipneyJane

CAFCGirl wrote: »

Pretty much me on a lot of clothing - particularly pyjamas, sweats and t-shirts - what 14\15 year olds are fed on these days for them to grow so big!? Hubby says I'm just horrendously small \short

You've reminded me of a story my mum used to tell, from during the war. She went shopping with her sister-in-law (Aunty M) who was 4ft 8in tall and heavily pregnant. Aunty M was looking at maternity clothes when the shop assistant told Mum, "We don't serve children here. Please remove your sister from my shop!". :eek:

(This was in Sydney in about 1941.)

PollyWollyDoodle wrote: »

Interesting weekend with a friend and her lovely teenage daughter. Daughter wanted to get some holiday stuff and we went to a local "shopping outlet" place. Not somewhere I would normally go, I have never been into brands and I really don't understand why you would pay a premium price for a t-shirt which is advertising the name of the brand. Maybe its just me! :rotfl:

Teenager is vegetarian and trying to become vegan, her mum has had several food items refused because of palm oil, she has a well-developed social conscience. I said I am looking for a denim skirt, and she mentioned a well-known cheap clothing shop. I gently explained that I wouldn't shop there because of the employment practices.

I didn't want to spoil her pleasure in the new clothes she bought, and I don't think I did, but it was clearly a novel idea to her that buying clothes could also have ethical implications. I think for me that is almost as big a factor as cost these days. Just looking round this shopping outlet I was horrified at the volume of new clothing being purchased, a lot of it summer stuff that will only be worn a few times. Makes you think. I'm off to the charity shop!

Thank you for gently opening her eyes. If she tells 10 of her friends and they tell 10 of theirs, eventually a change will be made.

- Pip

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere wrote: »

Polly, well done on managing to gently introduce the concept - I fear I'd have gone off on a lecturing rant and turned her the other direction by mistake!

both my nieces are in their mid/late 20s now, and buy a LOT less but for years they did assume a) they'd go abroad for holidays at least 2-3 times a year and b) they'd buy almost completely new wardrobes each trip.
I find it mesmerising, how different their world is - in my mid-20s I was an undergraduate so clothes came from Oxfam, homemade, or asked-for specially for Xmas or birthdays; hair was done in a mate's kitchen with enormous fun and experimentation. You might paint your toenails a few times a year for the fun of it. Holidays were a Railcard train-ticket to stay at your pal's home or going Youth Hostelling in someone's old banger which always broke down somewhere remote, or a borrowed grandparents' car which was a huge old boxy Rover that guzzled fuel...

My nieces both class themselves as on a low income and never having any money, but they both have monthly hair salon appointments at 70-80 quid, they have fortnightly manicures and pedicures and gel nails at 20-30 quid a go, they still have a couple of foreign package-holidays every year and still buy new clothes for any event, a gig, someone's wedding, about 4-6 times a year they "need" a new dress or outfit, shoes, bag, special hair and nails appt, the lot...

It's just so much more consumer-based than my 20s were, in the 1990s. I know I was a bit of a hippy and other people bought more, but all the same, the idea that someone who describes themselves as struggling financially can spend that much on salons and clothes - oh, and tanning salons in summer of course....

I dunno...

I'm obviously getting old now I'm 50

Welcome to my soapbox, Laura. I'll move over to give you some space.

I completely agree with you. I work with a few and secretly call them the "Insecurigram Generation". They're attempting to live the life sold to them in beauty magazines* and style supplements, while not realising that all those stories are built on a lie. (You see young women with Insecurigram faces everywhere - makeup you'd be able to see in the dark, it's that heavily layered.) They're still dreaming of finding a rich boyfriend to rescue them from their debts, while either living at home or having their rent regularly subsidised by their parents.

In my first year in the UK, I did try and pursue some of the magazine lifestyle for about 6 months, until I realised that if you ignored the exchange rate difference, not only was my salary 1/4 of the equivalent I'd earned in Australia doing the same job - I was a nurse back then - but my spending power was halved, since £1 only bought what 50 cents would buy in Oz. By the end of 1989, I was over £1,000 in debt while earning less than £8k.

It took forever to pay back and, after that, I was really broke for far too long to want that lifestyle.

- Pip



* It's about 20 years since Savage Garden released Affirmation, with it's lyric "I believe that beauty magazines promote low self esteem". I know I was alone, driving in my car, when I first heard it and I think I pumped the air and shouted "Yes!".

Laura_Elsewhere

The funny thing being that Cosmo in the 70s and early 80s genuinely WAS empowering - I once lived for several months in a room shared with boxes of my flatmate's ex's stuff she hadn't collected yet and one box, unlidded, was full of old Cosmos, and I cheerfully waded through them (1990, this was) and they were really liberating and confidence-building and so on...

I dunno. We had much more fun, I think, when we were growing up exploring the world. Now that really DOES mean I'm old
My first year living away from home was in Sydney in 1987-88, and no-one I knew had any spare money. We all hung onto our best $2 notes so we could "race sheep" to get a beer in a pub, and I remember one incredibly fast sheep that kept me in smokes and drinks for weeks til I was so broke I was forced to sell it on for five bucks...

(Racing sheep - the old paper two-dollar banknote in 1980s Australia had a picture of a sheep on it. The metal security-strip was in a slightly different place in each batch printed, so your sheep was further over the finish-line, or less far over the finish-line.... Australians being people who bet on raindrops or flies on a window, you could just stroll into a pub, lean against the bar and say "anyone wanna race sheep?" and chance your luck. If your sheep was fastest, you kept the slower sheep, ie $2 bills... )

CAFCGirl

I feel quite strongly for the younger generation - I think I'm in the middle between them and many here, I get that it all seems so shallow, self absorbed and vapid to live in their way, compared to what others endure or did in their own heyday. Their youths were so much different to mine, I remember the shame of 'having to' shop in charity shops - because they were the cheapest places for clothing, there wasn't the fast fashion industry we have now.....

But then I also remember being so much more incredibly free. The pressures came from maybe a few 'have's' at school, but it wasn't from every angle, and it's streams that weren't even around when I was going and impressionable (well it was just coming out).

I can't imagine what life is like growing up with all that, with the constant pressure to be a certain way, love a certain lifestyle and pressure to prove your living 'your best life'. All the uncertainty they face, how quickly everything changes, expectations to keep up - with just about everything - being by 'woke', even now the trend of being a certain kind of consumer!
by
It's an absolute minefield, and I count myself lucky I'm not in that generation to be honest.

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere wrote: »

I dunno. We had much more fun, I think, when we were growing up exploring the world. Now that really DOES mean I'm old
My first year living away from home was in Sydney in 1987-88, and no-one I knew had any spare money. We all hung onto our best $2 notes so we could "race sheep" to get a beer in a pub, and I remember one incredibly fast sheep that kept me in smokes and drinks for weeks til I was so broke I was forced to sell it on for five bucks...

(Racing sheep - the old paper two-dollar banknote in 1980s Australia had a picture of a sheep on it. The metal security-strip was in a slightly different place in each batch printed, so your sheep was further over the finish-line, or less far over the finish-line.... Australians being people who bet on raindrops or flies on a window, you could just stroll into a pub, lean against the bar and say "anyone wanna race sheep?" and chance your luck. If your sheep was fastest, you kept the slower sheep, ie $2 bills... )

Yes, we'll bet on anything. It's part of the national psyche.

For all I know, Laura, we crossed paths in Sydney. I was up there for 10 days in 1988. That year's Intervarsity Choral Festival was held in Sydney in the August, just after my Nursing final exams. Intervarsities were two weeks of partying, fun, little sleep and 10-hour-day rehearsals, with a concert in the middle and another at the end. (I missed the rehearsals for the first concert but for the end of the Festival we sang Mahler's 8th Symphony in the Sydney Opera House for 2 nights.) I remember going to Pancakes on the Rocks at 2am, after our Post Concert Party and then walking across Sydney Harbour Bridge as the dawn broke.

- Pip

Crafty_Lisa_Hampshire

I have had a lot of catching up to do today but I am now up to date. Sorry to hear the bad news people have had and thanks for the inspiration you all continue to give. Also welcome to the new joiners. I have had a couple of weeks on holiday (not away but off work) and I have been busy with some larger projects so haven't been logging on. I do have some coupon spends to declare since I last posted.


I have booked myself a working holiday in September (to make up for the one that was cancelled for this month) and they have recommended that you wear steel capped boots. I own walking boots but not steel capped boots so I bought some for £26.00 from an outdoors store. I was very surprised that they were so reasonably priced. Its not a waste either as I will continue to use them when I work up the allotment instead of using my walking boots. Boots are down as 5 coupons. Because I was silly enough to go shopping for boots without any socks I had to buy a pair to try these boots on. I was a little annoyed with myself but they will get worn. That was 1 more coupon. I also made a sleeveless top as it has been so warm and used 1 metre of fabric so that is another 3 coupons. On the plus side my Mum was getting rid of some normal socks so I said I would have them - 0 coupons. My tally now seems to be 38 coupons spent. 28 coupons left. Having a quick scan of my spends so far it seems that the big coupon spends seems to have been on footwear rather than anything else. I did have a quick sort through my footwear the other day (when I was off) and I seem to only really need now a pair of aerobics trainers. I won't be looking for them just yet mind. I also had a sort through my coats and I think I am alright with what I have got. They all get used as well. I did this sort as these items are kept in my hall and one of the big projects I did on my time off was decorating the hall, stairs and landing. Hard work but I am very pleased with the result and that it has been done.


I agree with all your comments about 20 somethings of today. When I say I am skint I don't do things like have manicures or hair cuts. I wait until I am not skint. I do think there is far too much pressure on youngsters to look the part. I was so glad when I got to my 30s and I just thought to myself "I don't care what people think, I am going to be me" and I have felt better for it. Perhaps it will all start going back the other way soon with all the awareness that has been made in respect of waste, pollution and other ethics. Lets hope so.

maddiemay

Today I found just the summer trousers that I have been seeking, not CS, but new from the market 97% viscose 3% elastane, white butterflies on a black background so that I think is 6 coupons, taking my total so far to 31/66