And it's spent in that much time inside a charity shop change, any assumptions that you personally had about charity retail as a customer?

Yes, definitely.

I mean, I have, that's why like my book is not like a sort of blamey book.

Like I'm not, no matter how weird or disgusting the donations got, I was never like angry at the customers because I think we've all been the people who has thoughtlessly donated stuff.

I don't think I've donated anything like disgusting, but I've donated stuff that's not really like suitable.

So it definitely, it transformed the way I donate.

It transformed, yeah, like my understanding, I think, of clothing as well and what makes a good piece of clothing beautiful.

So after spending four years immersed in this world, if you could change one thing about the relationship between fashion and consumers and charity shops, what would it be? And how would you go about it? Asking for a friend?

But this is sort of placed in also a... your book and the narrative which is set against austerity food banks growing hardship can we talk about this sort of juxtaposition and then can we also talk about your austerity timeline which you created which was quite a difficult read and I was reading it I was like oh my goodness it's you know to see it all you know in a timeline is quite hard isn't it to read it

Yeah, it is.

I mean, I really needed to write that timeline.

I mean, I think it's not now radical to say that the UK...

It has become a poor society with just some very rich people in it.

You know, I think that's that's accepted.

And I wanted to write that timeline to kind of reassure people like you're not imagining things like, yeah, this is a much more difficult country to live in.

Should we get into sort of policy slash, you know, what we could do better?

starts popping up yeah

yeah and you know and and uh fashion websites are like are the worst i mean they're all awful like the you know guardian will put trackers on you bbc will put tracks on you but any kind of fashion related content i found was putting the most number of trackers on my browsers when i clicked on it And then that was back in, like, a few years ago.

Yeah, that was, yeah, around, like, yeah, 2020 kind of time.

Yeah, so it is awful.

The pressures on people are terrible.

But, you know, this is why I do think, like, if you want to change... uh consumption habits we have to change society like we have a consumption-based uh society we have a society that tells us if we don't keep up with fashion we're going to lose out in some way you know maybe you're not going to find love maybe you're not going to find a good job maybe know maybe you'll get arrested or be treated differently by police or the courts and and things like this maybe you're you will get turned down by a landlord you know so many like big structural things that that keep you looking at having to look a certain way and having to keep up And like, my God, does that increase when you get older as well? It's like, you know, the little demons start going, oh, you're going to be irrelevant.

Yes.

food banks as well probably depressed oh

we think we're in a kind of pre-loved virtuous circle, but that's not always the case, is it, when we donate to charity shops?

Yeah, I mean, I think we donate to charity shops because we love the charities that, you know, that are running the shops.

And we hope that we're doing something good and we hope the clothes are going to the people who need them.

But the reality is very different in a lot of cases.

If a garment can't be sold in a charity shop, then it is exported.

And I mean, yes, like one of the countries where loads of stuff ends up from the UK is Ghana, right? And, well, the figures are a bit controversial, but millions and millions of the pieces of clothing that arrive in Ghana are not sellable there either by the market traders.

You know, if something's not a nice item in the UK, it doesn't become a nice item on the boat over to Ghana.

And you don't think it's the reality, do you?

So we think we're in a kind of pre-loved virtuous circle, but that's not always the case, is it, when we donate to charity shops?

Yeah, I mean, I think we donate to charity shops because we love the charities that, you know, that are running the shops.

And we hope that we're doing something good and we hope the clothes are going to the people who need them.

But the reality is, is very different in a lot of cases.

If a garment can't be sold in a charity shop, then it is exported.

And I mean, yes, like one of the countries where loads of stuff ends up from the UK is Ghana, right? And, you know, stuff there is like falling, you know, about, well, the figures are a bit controversial, but millions and millions of the pieces of clothing that arrive in Ghana are not sellable there either by the market traders.

You know, if something's not a nice item in the UK, it doesn't become a nice item on the boat over to Ghana anymore.

And you don't think it's the reality, do you?