I QUIT SHOPPING

I’m overly sensitive. Sometimes I let my dirty dishes pile up in the sink. I have an irrational fear of confrontation. But recently I discovered what might be my greatest flaw of all: I’m a hypocrite.

I’m sitting on my bedroom floor amid a mountain of crumpled clothes. Under the strict instruction of Marie Kondo, she who inspired the world to cut clutter in the name of joy, I’ve emptied the entire contents of my wardrobe onto the bed. But it doesn’t fit, so it’s spilling onto the ground like oozing lava. There are blazers, belts and boots, colourful slip skirts, a slew of silk shirts, more white linen dresses than I care to count and a stack of jeans I’m holding on to in the clichéd hope of fitting into them once more. And yet I claim to care about the environment.

Unless you’ve been living under a, ahem, pile of clothes of late, you’re probably well versed on the impact our collective and relentless hunger for fashion is having on the planet. The garment industry is the second-worst polluter in the world, and of the 53. On the human front, a damning Oxfam report recently revealed the systemic exploitation of international garment workers who make clothes for some of Australia’s biggest brands.