SECOND-HAND SEPTEMBER - HAND-ME-DOWNS

Being sustainable for me is approaching consumption with the long term in mind — assessing whether you really need what you are purchasing or will even like it in years to come. Livia Firth’s #30wears initiative nails how my parents wore fashion, and my parents’ parents before them. Fashion back then wasn’t designed to be cheap and throwaway; when you bought something it was a long-term investment.

Fashion is about having fun, expressing your personality as well as your beliefs — you can still follow trends and incorporate them into your look and be sustainable. Using what is already available on our planet in a creative way is way more chic than simply picking something off the shelf and further depleting the world’s resources. I get a buzz from shopping second-hand, I always have. The thrill comes from whether or not you’ll find something that is calling your name and even giving it a slight adjustment to make it all the more yours. Even better are hand-me-downs from friends and family — which often have a history built into them before they become yours. Here are four pieces I know I’ll love and treasure for years to come, which were worn and enjoyed and passed on by some of my loved ones.

VANGIE’S HANDMADE DRESS 

This is my mum's dress, which I've had my hands on for the past 20 years. She had it made in her home country, the Philippines, in her early twenties. She made many of her clothes back then, but this dress was made by a seamstress, and the pattern was from a Vogue catalogue. Mum used to wear it to informal parties, with her long hair worn down and sandals, with no need for accessories. She said it was great for travel as it didn't take up much space and was easy “wash and wear.”

I rummaged through Mum's clothes throughout my teen years — only accessing bits here and there as we moved 15 times. Life was always busy and some boxes were never unpacked, so I didn't find this piece until my twenties. I've worn it dressed up for parties with heels and a wide-brimmed hat, and dressed it down with flats or even no shoes for garden parties. I love that it belongs to no particular style or fashion and has so much history behind it. I just have to imagine it as I listen to her stories, since there are no pictures we can find of her in it!

AUNTIE JOAN’S HANDBAG

Auntie Joan or AJ or Great Aunt Joan as she really was to Nick was Nick’s favourite relative and she soon became one of mine. Auntie Joan was the matriarch of the family and so much fun. She was incredibly caring, intuitive, straight-talking, loved fashion and gardening, wrote lovely little poems and was one of the original ballroom dancers on the BBC TV show Dancing Club in 1949 which then became Come Dancing, a forerunner for Strictly Ballroom. AJ passed recently, months from her 100th birthday, and always promised me her favourite handbag — a mustard tan traditional-style ladies’ handbag with a clip top and matching purse inside featuring our shared initials JH. Everyone in the family found it very ooh la la that it was monogrammed. AJ is one of my fashion idols — making her own clothes, reworking hand-me-downs, taking a train after work most Wednesdays to browse in the department stores of London, and she kept everything absolutely immaculate and could tell you the history of every item — even the Dior suspenders I found with her when we once rummaged through her wardrobe! She loved to give and was bashful on receipt of anything. This handbag is my little piece of AJ.

EMMA’S VINTAGE SHIRT

One of my best friends is a fashion buyer and she is the most fashionista of all my friends. She never doesn’t look ridiculously cool (even when 9 months pregnant) and is usually so ahead of the rest of us that we give her plenty of slack for the weird and wonderful items she wears, which we end up lusting after a year later. This shirt has been in my wardrobe for nearly a decade and I’ve worn it a lot — you might recognise it from me feed and from one of my popular IGTV sound baths. It was Emma’s for a few years before that (basically until I became her neighbour and inherited it). And who knows whose it was before that, but it was already vintage, circa ‘70-’80s and Emma picked it up in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena (the biggest antiques/flea market in California) when she was vintage shopping for work — to get the good stuff, it had to be a 5 a.m. start!

NICK’S RED LUMBER JACKET

Nick picked up this vintage red lumber jacket in his first year at University. Having grown up in Devon, he was not ready for the colder winters of the North! He actually got it as payment for being in a fashion show at Uni, where he catwalked for lots of local designers, including a second-hand vintage store for whom he wore this jacket! It’s been worn and loved by him for years and then sat in his wardrobe at his mum’s for well over a decade until yours truly came along, spotted it, dusted it off and now come autumn/winter I catwalk all over town (OK just the park) in it ‘cos it’s all mine! Finders keepers and what not… Hee hee *wicked laughter*