Copyright
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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
FIRST EDITION
© Tara Button 2018
Tara Button asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN: ISBN 9780008217716
Ebook Edition © December 2018 ISBN: 9780008217723
Version: 2018-12-23
Dedication
For my great makers:
My parents, who made me,
Mark, the one making dreams come true,
Juliet, the best maid of honour,
and Howard, who makes me happy every day
Introduction
or
Why I want my grandmother’s tights
My grandmother’s tights used to last forever. They were so strong, people could tow cars with them, and did! Granny got two pairs – one to wash and one to wear. But then the manufacturers decided to change the way their stockings were made, and not for the better. So today, when I reach for a pair of tights, it’s like playing pantyhose Russian roulette. Which pair will break this morning?
It may not seem like a crisis to have a drawer stuffed with half-laddered hosiery, but I see it as a very small glimpse into a much larger problem. Our whole houses, our whole lives, have become stuffed full of things that let us down, cause our stress levels to skyrocket and our bank accounts to empty. But precisely because these things are poorly made or faddy, perversely we are compelled to buy more of them.
But couldn’t life be different? What if we decided to surround ourselves with beautiful, well-made things that lasted forever, instead of ‘for now’ objects that soon need replacing?
That was the seed of an idea that came to me in 2013.
Before then I was a paid-up loyalty-card-carrying member of the impulse-shopper club who never questioned the things I bought. I’d always been a spendthrift. My mother says that as a child it never much mattered how much pocket money I was given, I was always broke, and this behaviour carried on into adulthood. Once I’d decided I wanted something, I ‘needed’ it right away, and so my life and home became filled up with stuff that was ‘almost but not quite right’. Longevity wasn’t one of my criteria, so I owned temporary things, poorly thought-through and soon-regretted clothes or hobby and fitness equipment bought in fits of short-lived enthusiasm.
My habitual impulse buying eventually caused credit card debts of thousands of pounds, leaving me feeling out of control, childish and angry with myself. I would come home to a chronically cluttered house, which was exhausting to tidy or clean, and stare blankly at my piles of fast-fashion clothes, wondering why I felt I had nothing to wear.