Why I started buying vintage / Preowned clobber .

So dear reader , the buzz words seemingly for the past few years have been twofold:'Passionate'and 'sustainable.'

'Passionate'seems to apply to everything ,from doling the housework to watching paint dry , and is in my opinion overused and lazy . 'Sustainable' seems to have cropped up fairly recently , and again all sorts of companies are grabbing on to its tails in a desperate bid to appease the eco friendly buyer . Are we convinced? Most probably, otherwise they wouldn't use this in their campaigns.

So , back to the question in mind .

Me ? Well yes, I am very interested( hold on with the passion !), in vintage clothes , and the more I buy the greater the interest grows . For example , I love the cut of a nice 90s pair of Ralph Lauren cords , pleated and just baggy enough , I have a pair recently brought, ( Gant ) . shown below and am looking forward to pairing them with a lovely pair of pre owned , loakes brouges by Herring shoes .

And yes, as a family we absolutely and sincerley do , believe in the sustainability factor, to the extent of my ex chastising me for putting potato cuttings in the incorrect bin and I used to live in fear of buying the wrong washing up liquid, ie the one that didn't shout I'm green , buy me ! Even though it seemed you had to use more of it to actually get the dishes clean !

However. And honestly. The real reason I started becoming an e bay addict is simple . Money . And the lack of it .

After running a fairly successful fright forwarding company for over 20 years, things came to a grinding halt around six years ago , for a variety of reasons , too many eggs in too few baskets , market conditions and yes probably boredom.

One thing I never had to worry about though when it was working, was the silver dollar . Turning over hundreds of thousands in sales and often in the higher tax bracket .

So what do you do ? 50 years old , need to pay the mortgage, not worked for anyone for over 20 years ? Well, I panicked.

At 50 , delivering pizzas until past 11 at night , and then cycling home 8 miles . Uphill !

Before that a stint at Uber driving , absolutely dreadful, don't support the gig economy folks ! Then, sacked from at least two jobs after the last pizza was delivered. (But the best people get sacked at lest twice dear reader . )

On to my present job , which although is poorly paid , has been great for my self esteem and I get to observe many people, and see what they are wearing), but I still liked nice things to wear so what did I do ?

Easy , started to change my personal style somewhat ,( but more on that in another blog) .And buy clothes. But pre owned .

First ,it was two pairs of virtually unworn loakes , less than half price . Then ,Ralph Lauren sweaters , chinos, la coste polos , some absolutely gorgeous, madras Indian cotton , Ralph Lauren ,( can you see a pattern dear reader ?) shorts , the tweed jacket above, which I sold when I eventually realised it was a little too short , and probably the highlight, so far of my vintage venture so far, a houndstooth Dax jacket , for the princely sum of around 13 pounds or a round of coffees . Ok after a while a small hole appeared , but that was fixed and it adds a bit of 'shabby chic' if you will . And you know what ? Buying vintage and pre owned is more fun than buying new , it's a little risky as well which adds to the frisson if you will when the goods arrive.

But the trick is , to develop the 'eye' . Never for example ,buy from only looking from photos on the phone , use the bigger screen . Mix vintage with new where possible, but then you need to know what to buy new ? And hopefully site can offer some suggestions and point you in the right direction.

In summary , I hope I have given you an honest answer. Yes , being sustainable does make me feel good , but so does having the money to take the kids to the cinema and looking ( even if the bank statement screams the contary ) well heeled .