I have recently received several wonderful, thought-provoking questions from a fellow human. I'm deeply grateful for them. I decided to answer them here in my autoethnography so this work and reflections associated with it become guided by fellow humans' questions too rather than merely by my own mind. I will answer the questions over the next few days.
The fellow human asks: If a piece of clothing you live with wears out beyond repair, and you can’t borrow another one or go without it, how do you approach acquiring another one? Would you purchase second hand or from a sustainable/local/ethical business? What would your thought process be?
As I was contemplating this question, I was thinking about concrete situations I found myself in where what my fellow human describes was the case. Strangely, shoes rather than clothing items came to mind first. As for clothing items, perhaps trousers come to mind, as this is something I've found difficult to borrow.
I've been borrowing clothes almost as long as I remember myself. In the beginning (I was in my early teens), I would mostly borrow from my family members. My grandmother, my mother, then my stepfather and my brother. I would then borrow clothes from my friends and partners. None of those clothing items were in my size, but they were wonderful to wear nevertheless. It was easy to borrow sweaters, t-shirts, shirts, scarves, and jackets, but impossible to borrow trousers as they would be too big for me. It's still the case now. I borrow my partner's t-shirts, shirts and other items. As for trousers and shorts (I live with 2 pairs of sweatpants and 2 pairs of shorts), I buy them from a sustainable Danish business. It feels somewhat uncomfortable to say/type the words sustainable business. I'm a researcher who specialises in sustainability in business, and, considering the type of sustainability that I advocate in my works (post-growth), I believe that genuine sustainability requires much more than what most businesses actually do. This includes most businesses that I buy from. While there are many aspects of their business models that are sustainable, there are many ones that are not. For example, the company that my trousers and shorts come from makes their products in Europe from organic cotton. They have a permanent collection of items so it's easy to replace the item when it completely wears out. At the same time, it's a for-profit business. It's not a small business either. In my experience, the quality of their products is inconsistent too, and I observe that even though they claim to avoid following fashion trends, they still feel the need to introduce new things and new colours. It invites humans to consume.
I suppose the short answer to "what would I do if I needed a new item and could not borrow it?" is, I would buy from a sustainable/local/ethical brand. I look for items that are made in Europe (since this is where I live), are made from natural materials, and would last, as a minimum. Though my partner and I live with some items that are not made in Europe and are made from blends of natural and synthetic materials too. In this case, we buy such items from companies that have multiple sustainability credentials. And we make these items last.
Oftentimes fellow humans ask me why I don't buy second-hand. Buying second-hand is a very good sustainability practice, and I definitely encourage fellow humans to adopt this practice if, for example, they need something for a special occasion (I don't wear anything special for special occasions) or like to experiment with different styles (personally, I wear the same outfit every day). I avoid second-hand shopping for several reasons. First and foremost, when it comes to clothing, I look for particular fabrics (mostly organic cotton), colours (neutrals) and styles (basics). I look for organic cotton because I live with an autoimmune skin condition. My skin reacts to many fabrics and laundry detergents. When I buy something new (which in reality happens rarely), I can choose organic cotton and wash the item with scent-free laundry sheets. I wear a uniform to normalise wearing the same thing every day. It would be time-consuming to look for second-hand items that are almost identical to the ones I wear. And I want to avoid investing my time in shopping. Shopping is something that I try to avoid as much as possible. I don't enjoy browsing, looking for "new" things. I would much rather spend this time elsewhere. I am somewhat sceptical when it comes to online second-hand market places. Perhaps their founders and owners would claim that sustainability is at the heart of it, but could it be that normalisation of perpetual shopping and consumerism is also there? Could it be that shopping second-hand leads to spontaneously buying something else or a feeling that one cannot miss some deal, or a feeling that one still doesn't have enough? Of course buying something second-hand is better than buying the same thing new (for this reason, I always asked universities to give me second-hand equipment), but I can't help but think that second-hand shopping is very similar to buying new things in its underlying psychological and social mechanisms. I also wonder if the existence of second-hand marketplaces encourages people to consume more of new things. They might buy more knowing that they can just sell it later, so recover some money and supposedly avoid contributing to ecological degradation.
To me it is important to wear the same outfit every day because if I wear different ones (even if it's second-hand), it might inspire fellow humans to consume more. After all, they do not know if I bought something new or second-hand, unless they ask, which very few people do. I don't want to inspire consumption.
Having said that, if a person can find exactly the item they've been looking for second-hand, there is nothing wrong with buying it. In my experience, I've found it difficult to, at once, wear a uniform, go for certain fabrics/colours/styles, avoid spending time on shopping and buy second-hand. Yet, as I said above, my first preference is to borrow than buy new items. Perhaps I've been lucky in that my current partner and my previous partner prefer very similar things to what I like wearing.