2025 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

whatadeelight

I'm in please!

66 for 2025, as this will be my first year doing it.

I'm going to count secondhand things I buy too because I mainly only buy secondhand things, but not secondhand things I'm given (I sometimes get unwanted stuff from my sister).

So far in Jan all I've bought is a cardigan from a charity shop, so 4 coupons used! 

PipneyJane

whatadeelight said:

I'm in please!

66 for 2025, as this will be my first year doing it.

I'm going to count secondhand things I buy too because I mainly only buy secondhand things, but not secondhand things I'm given (I sometimes get unwanted stuff from my sister).

So far in Jan all I've bought is a cardigan from a charity shop, so 4 coupons used! 

Welcome @whatadeelight  Please take a seat by the fire.  Cup of tea?  Please tell us all about yourself.  Are you a crafter?  (There are a lot of crafters here.). I’ll just go find the cake tin…

- Pip

whatadeelight

Thank you, Pip, a cup of tea would be lovely, and I'll enjoy drying myself out by the fire after just getting back from a rainy school run!

I'm an ADHD serial hobby starter but then abandoner 😂 so I have all the supplies for knitting, crocheting, darning, sewing and probably other textile related crafts, but have barely finished anything actually wearable!

I have a whole bag of clothes that have been out of action for over 6 months now due to missing buttons, rips, stains, etc, so one of my first clothes related goals is to finally get round to mending all that, which will bring a lot of excitement back to my wardrobe without having to buy anything new! I have a few smart casual gaps in my wardrobe and am just back to work again after being off with my DS for a couple of years, so will be working on filling those holes sensibly and sustainably mainly second hand too.

Joined this challenge on a bit of an impulse today as have been thinking about doing a wartime rationing for food too, and remembered that OSMS would have some good threads for resources, and then thought may as well do clothes rationing too! Haven't had much income as a family for a while now so adding some challenge fun and intentionally to frugality seems like a positive move to make it all a bit more cheerful! 

pixtotts

weenancyinAmerica said:

@pixtotts - maybe that explains my cats - plan to live forever so not very loving. I have always loved it when I had a loving cat but the current three are stubborn, ignore the human when possible, and generally make a mess. Sorry you have lost your two loving family members. They do get themselves into our lives, don't they (even my three). 

Haha, my boyfriends cats the same, 11 currently (though now I've said that I think he's been 11 for a few years in my head) he just tolerates us visiting his house, eats any plant or flower I bring in the door, wees in the lounge, and even gets a bit bitey sometimes, pretty sure he's going to outlive the human race Thank you, these animals wiggle their way in.

@PipneyJane - that's so interesting re the history of the challenge! Thank you.I just stumbled across it on here, and thought yep need that! haha. 

@PollyWollyDoodle that was probably me stressed about the amount of clothes... I really do need to do something like Marie Kondo, I have tried in the past, but it was before vinted, so I may try again now getting rid of things feels less wasteful. I am definitely one of those that wears 20% of my wardrobe 80% of the time...actually I'm probably worse, maybe 10/90 

@whatadeelight welcome! Ooh you sound just like me with all those unfinished projects, I was just looking at a pair of trousers I need to repair - but they are light and summery so I have a few months to think on it haha!




Sorry if I'm repeating myself but I've started knitting that jumper I was talking about wanting to do!
So far the back panel is just under 3 inches long... it may take a while! I'm using wool repurposed from a different project that I don't even remember what it was, so nothing to declare so far, but it's a pattern with a cat on the front (it's adorable!) but I may need some black to do some of the details. Going to wait it out and hope I happen upon some black scraps somewhere before I get to that bit. 

I popped in some charity shops with a friend at the weekend, got some embroidery thread for work, and a book, but she found the most gorgeous hand knitted jumpers, they were only £5 so I confess  I was a bad influence and encouraged her to get the one. We're both crafters so the fact they were hand knitted was just so lovely, they were well knitted, with a detailed yolk, whoever made them had obviously found a pattern they liked, but they had adjusted the pattern on the sleeve on the one. Beautiful! 

Sarahspangles

I hope there is a working party today at the Hall, as I would like to seek opinions over tea and biscuits.

My dears, can one wear any sombre colour to a funeral, or must it be black? My much-cobbled black court shoes have finally given up the ghost. I would get much more wear from a dark navy loafer, and also reduce the risk of toppling into the grave (as court shoes aren’t the best on grass) and making a spectacle of myself.

The reason for asking now is fortunately not that I have yet another funeral to attend. I have just acquired a velvet jacket, little worn, to wear in the evening. After laundering, I deduce it started life as a green jacket and has been over dyed black, but hasn’t quite made it to black, and may never do. Whereas over dyeing with blue would make it a definite blue black colour.

But at the same time I also need a standby funeral outfit. With demobilisation, I no longer have the option of uniform and it occurs to me that with a different outfit underneath the new-to-me jacket (and the loafers) would ‘do’ for both evening and for funerals. After all, don’t people wear their furs for funerals?

Baileys_Babe

I have worn brown for the last few funerals that haven't had a dress code, usually bright colours or a particular colour. I feel any dark colour is acceptable.

florianatwobob

Unless otherwise stated dark and tidy is perfectly acceptable for funerals. You are there to celebrate and mourn the deceased and comfort those still here. 

Sarahspangles

Baileys_Babe said:

I have worn brown for the last few funerals that haven't had a dress code, usually bright colours or a particular colour. I feel any dark colour is acceptable.

Thank you - I do find this difficult nowadays. The last that I attended had an instruction not to wear dark colours but then all the family did, so I was glad I’d only worn one bright item. I bought some sparkly pink shoes for my mother’s funeral but as she’d been in my mind when I bought them they were in ‘her’ pink, a shade I don’t/can’t wear. So in the end I donated them.

Laura_Elsewhere

Sarahspangles said:

Thank you - I do find this difficult nowadays. The last that I attended had an instruction not to wear dark colours but then all the family did, so I was glad I’d only worn one bright item.

Oh goodness, that would really throw me! 

I have done the opposite, been instructed to wear bright colours (and everyone did) but as I wanted to howl my grief at my Utterly Wonderful Aunt's death from the rooftops, I crocheted a little black lace cap and wrist-warmers and wore those surreptitiously to symbolise my personal desire to shroud myself head to foot in blackest black... 

Usually, I wear any dark colour- as @florianatwobob says, tidy and dark. I have worn a black coat with an old-rose lining, with a big pashmina-type scarf that was black with fawn and old-rose pattern, and that seemed acceptable. I have black shoes and boots anyway, and a grey wool skirt that looks respectable and plain. 

I also nowadays keep an eye on my summer clothes and shoes as well- when my sister died, her funeral was in a heatwave and we all realised our funeral blacks were definitely not suitable for a heatwave, so we had to dash out and buy lightweight blacks. I had a black linen skirt, black espadrille sandals (neat ones, not too beach-y!), and a black cotton-jersey ballet-wrap over a black camisole. 
My summer funeral blacks generally are black, because I can wear a black skirt or top in summer as general wear; my winter funeral blacks are more likely to be mixed dark neutrals, very dark green, dark- or mid-grey and black, rather than black. 

PollyWollyDoodle

Well, these days it seems anything goes, but I think neat-and-not gaudy is the way to go, very few people wear all black and not everyone has a spare black coat hanging around.  Navy would be perfectly fine, as would grey, black, purple, dark patterned stuff etc. It’s about being there to pay your respects.  

I’ve attended a lot of funerals (professionally not personally), and although I don’t judge what people choose to wear I always smile when I see a bloke wearing a dark suit with brown shoes.  If you’ve ever heard the Stanley Holloway monologue ‘Brown Boots’ you’ll  understand!