Consumerist tendencies...

Today I witnessed my inner consumerist tendencies in full force. In the spirit of working out my current position, I let this tendency roll rather than halt it at the first sign and observed it.

I needed a new pair of jeans. And by needed, I mean *really* needed. One of my two pairs died a death at the weekend (in an unrepairable manner) and the other have about a fortnight left in them before succumbing to the same fate. So a new pair of jeans were definitely on the "need" rather than "want" list. Plus one deconsumerism point for distinguishing between need and want.

Due to me not really liking clothes shopping, the chosen time for this was after work, to try to minimise the amount of people present during my shopping trip. I thought it was going to be a quick one shop trip. However, the first shop didn't have my size. In the time it took me to discover this, I tried on 6 pieces of clothing (none of them jeans - minus one deconsumerism point) and bought one top. It's really lovely and was a complete bargain at 60% off (or that's what I told myself). Minus one deconsumerism point.

Onto the second shop, where I tried on 2 pairs of jeans and 4 non jean items. Minus one deconsumerism point. I did however buy just the pair of jeans. Plus one deconsumerism point. I then went into the jewellery section and spend about 5 minutes looking for something that I liked that was reduced. I didn't buy anything, but still, minus one deconsumerism point.

And then I walked further into town on my way home. I promise you that if at least two other shops had been open, I would have gone in. And why? To find that elusive thing known as a bargain. Minus many deconsumerism points.

All the shops at this time of year have sales on. Racks upon racks of clothes that they're trying to sell to make room for the next season's stocks, usually at least 50% and often more off the original price. Things we wouldn't have bought at the original price, or couldn't justify spending that amount of money on suddenly find their way into our bags, and you can easily spend far more money on several items that you didn't really want than one item you did. But because they were a bargain, it seems ok.

And the question of why shops have so many items left over is brought into question. Fashion changes at such a high speed, and many of the items simply don't sell. Added to that, many more items are stocked than are needed, because a potential sale might be missed if the correct size is not in stock at that particular moment. Here we witness the result of our demand for immediate retail satisfaction. As a result of this, over a week after the sales started, most shops are still overloaded with sale items, which will presumably be disposed of if not sold shortly, which is hardly a sustainable solution.

In hindsight, I would have bought the top I bought at full price, because it's really really nice. And I guess that's possibly a question to ask myself when buying clothes in future. And whilst I don't "need" it in the sense of not having any clothes to wear, I will wear it a lot, it won't go out of fashion, and I don't have anything like it already. But it did come from a high street store that scores just 8.5 out of 20 on the ethical consumer "ethiscore" scale...

So it was an interesting experience, and one that raises a lot of questions about how I should approach clothes shopping in the future. I'm not sure banning any kind of unplanned purchase is the answer - many of my favourite and most worn items were unplanned purchases, but it's clear that the bargain hunting consumer needs to be held in check somehow...