The new Fashionista Sista
May 5, 2012
It just never stops;
Good news is hard to come by with the exception of today. The ABC and SBS both came out with news that would gladden anyone’s heart. During the National Garage sale held today, it was promoting that more and more people instead of chucking stuff on the tip, are selling unwanted items at garage sales. Thousands of garage sales were held today. A famous fashionista sista was even stating she wasn’t shy of telling people that the stunning dress she was wearing cost her $2 at a garage sale. Next breakthrough would come if a well known couple; say Kylie Sandilands and that girl Jacky Oi could be shown on a well presented video clip to lounge on a dated or superfluous mattress. Now, that would really clean our suburbs. Well worn and conjugally proven mattresses would probably fetch quite a bit and fly out of the garage stall and hence off the kerbs and our streets…
Of course, the precedent for the popularity of second hand items especially fashion items were set by the fashion industry itself. Look around and young people spend hundreds of dollars on items that already look ragged and even torn while brand new. I was on a train not long ago and saw a girl in shorts so badly torn and worn I had to be held back by Helvi not to take out needle and cotton to offer a quick repair on the train. They are Armani shorts Helvi told me, cost at least $499.- a pair on ‘special’, and if you are lucky enough to find them, she added…My mother would have been aghast for anyone to have holes in clothing but all that pauper look is now haute couture and frantically sought after. No wonder no one is knitting and sewing anymore. I believe that some items during their production are mangled with rocks and put routinely on railway tracks to get the desired torn look.
The next good news item came from today’s week-end paper heralding in the business section that those large shopping malls are slowly being deserted, especially by tenants. Tenants are being offered free rents to stay in them. People are returning to the corner shop and are turned off by the driving and parking at those malls. In America they are trying to woe shoppers back with building apartments inside and above them. Not so silly. Not a single mall has been built since 2006 in the US.
Well, let’s hope the US is finally leading the world in something good and beneficial.
Tags: Armani, Fashionista, Shopping malls Posted in Gerard Oosterman | Edit | Leave a Comment »
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Asty:
Go to any second hand shop and they are teeming with shoppers. Sometimes you get amazing deals with well known fashion names popping up underneath the cloth- hanger. Go next to a shoemaker and people are queueing up getting shoes re-heeled or soled. Of course, our dad used to do all our shoes and every family had a shoe anvil upon which you could fasten the shoe to be repaired.
With a return to more sustainable shopping habits it really is in the hands of the consumer to become the recycler and lesten the pressure on our unsustainable gobling of resources and omitting CO2.
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It’s the article (laughter)… takes a sip of water…gerard, that is so delightful (laughter).
You have this unerring capacity to capture my moments, yesterday when I went to the chemist I noticed the charity bin was overflowing, such a temptation for a charity case but I walk past and leave the items to the organisation they belong to…unpredicatably there was a single mattress I admired cast onto the ground, half propped on an edge of the cement step up to the pavement in front of the chemist and another shop there, as if ready even for the night prowler to have a kip.
and not your average mattress, anyway…a dinki-di kapok covered in an attractive pastel multi-stripe cotton ‘ticking’, virtually new.
I have never seen a mattress abandoned on OUR streets here before either so it was worth a glnce. It’s, well, just not done. O, you are precious, gerard. Thank you too for the tips about what you read in the paper too. So beautifully written.
(laughter). 🙂
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Hi Shoe:
It could also be that mattresses are not anymore what they used to be and as so much else, all for a temporary use only. Most of what we buy now gets rotated in ever faster spinning circles. The average home now has 46 electrical items and it is estimated that the ‘stand-by mode’ cost of those items on the electricity bill cost on average $ 300.- per year. A second fridge or bar fridge cost $300.- per year alone.
According to what I read, the lower socioeconomic groups pay as much as 10% of their income on energy costs. Against that it also came out that the groups with lower incomes have even more electrical goods. It is predicted that electricity will double again over the next four or five years; this might mean we either run less gadgets or industry will come out with more efficient gadgets. I bet, many will install roof solar panels.
Even so, it might be wise, before tucking under the blankets to go around and any light still blinking, switch them all off.
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gerard, my electricity bill has arrived a few days ago and it is horrendous. I have only started in the last fortnight to attempt training myself to turn off every blinking lights. It is also going to take a fair amount of re-organisatioon.
My power bill is three monthly (no gas) and I have been submitting $40.00 a fortnight into the coffers of the energy company I am with-twice what I was 18 months ago-and it still wasn’t enough to cover the bill, I have to come up with more.
I have received at the same time an excess water bill that blew me out of the water, no pun originally intended. It is more than twice the previous bill and I did agree with the landlord some time ago it would be helpful to have a tap on the water tank in a position sufficient to use it to run water into the garden directly, otherwise I haul it n buckets from an internal laundry tap (not connected to the washing machine). I don’t use detergents on many of my clothes so suggested a grey water treatment which is under review.
A home owner must instal solar panels for their property. I cannot see any way out of this, especially for families of children.
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If you only have electricity it means you have electric hot water. If the hot water is an electric hot water storage system it means that over 80% of your bill is from hot water storage.
You only use hot water when you turn on the tap. Try and change to a solar heat pump or change to instantaneous gas hot water… Failing that switch you hot water off at the meter, depending on your amount of hot water usage and hot water storage. you might just need to have the hot water switched on for 2 or 3 days of the week with enough hot water storage for in between usage.
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I wondered about this approach, Gerard. The HWS is enormous. Of course I’m a tenant so I have to wear what is provided. You have prompted an idea I have been tossing up in the last few days getting on to the company to get someone out here to advise the locals, if they don’t have a visiting service. They might do … but that’s such a revelation about the HWS. Gez, thank you very much. Here’s me I’ve been worrying about everything I depend on, telly for entertainment, leccy for computer and the multi connection board for ‘stuff’, mobile phone chargers, stove etcet. Trivial next to the elephant in the corner of the laundry.
The property used to be a shift worker’s lodgings up to 6. 🙂
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Vinnies and the other ‘charity’ shops have obviously been doing this for yonks. I have a friend in Melbourne who hardly ever buys her clothes new. She can sew very well and fix anything that needs fixing and she knows the brands and quality. She also buys handbags and the occasional pair of shoes. She has one shop she goes to in particular which seems to stock a lot of stuff that has barely been ‘used’ or worn. I just keep wearing my clothes and when a bit worn they get relegated to only at home, for gardening/wood chopping/carting etc. I recycled most of my daughters stuff (grew out of it, not worn out) to friends with younger children or to the local secondhand shop where they were gleefully pounced upon. But, selling it at a garage sale – I draw the line at that.
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Youngest Algernonia is doing volunteer work at vinnies as part of her Duke of Ed. She finds all sorts of interesting things to bring home after a shift. The manager always gives her “mates rates” often some treasure for $1.
I’ve been buying Hawaiin shirts there for our annual big day out at work. Honestly if some of this stuff would be lucky to have been worn once. Some of the retro stuff is great value too.
I’m a bit like you vivienne, relegating my clothes to gardening or work around the house. One shirt Mrs A calls the dobby shirt.
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I used to run a secondhand clothes stall at Putney Flea-Market in London before coming to SA… Seems we’re ‘rediscovering’ old values… and the value of the old (or is that too much to hope for?) At least we seem to be rediscovering ‘frugality’, as I seem to remember predicting some time ago.
🙂
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