Primark has cut its prices and the charity shops are full, so I set myself a budget and went to see which pound goes further

Dressing for Winter on a Hundred Pounds

My winter coat died in March. The lining gave up first, then a pocket, then the zip, in the manner of an elderly car. I have got through a mild autumn in a denim jacket and denial.

The denial ends this month. I need a coat, a jumper, a pair of trousers that are not jeans with a hole, and boots. I have a hundred pounds.

That is not a challenge I have set for the blog. It is the amount left in the envelope marked “clothes.”

The News

It so happens that the cheapest shop on the high street has got cheaper. The fashion trade press reported in the summer that Primark is resetting hundreds of entry prices. Cotton-rich jeans at nine pounds. Men’s hoodies at nine. Pyjamas from seven.

The reason, according to the report, is competition from an online seller with dresses at three pounds, and the fact that sales in its existing shops have been flat.

That followed a poor start to the year. A report in January said that the cost-of-living squeeze had dented sales at both Primark and Marks and Spencer, with the first describing a difficult clothing market over Christmas.

So the shops are not selling as much, because people like me have less. And their answer is to cut prices. Which ought to be good news for people like me.

I went to find out.

Route One: New and Cheap

The big Primark in Stratford, a Saturday, which was an error of judgment.

Jeans, nine pounds. I tried them. They fit. The denim is thin and will bag at the knee within a month, but they are trousers.

A jumper, twelve pounds. Acrylic. It is warm for about an hour and then you are damp. I know this fabric. It bobbles if you look at it.

A coat. There was a padded one at thirty-five and a wool-look one at forty-two. “Wool-look” means polyester. It will keep the wind off. It will not keep the rain off, and it will look tired by February.

Boots, twenty-two pounds. Plastic upper, glued sole. I have had these before. They last one winter almost exactly and then the sole peels away from the toe like a banana.

Total: about a hundred and fifteen. Over budget, and I would be buying all of it again next year.

Route Two: Old and Good

On Sunday I did the charity shops. I have a circuit. Leyton High Road, then the bus to Walthamstow, then if I am feeling strong, Stoke Newington, where the donations are better because the donors are richer.

Here is what I found.

A wool coat. Navy, single-breasted, a high street brand from the days when it still used wool. Lined. One button loose. Eighteen pounds.

A lambswool jumper, men’s, grey, slightly too big in the way that is now apparently fashionable. Six pounds.

Corduroy trousers, a brand my mother would recognise. They needed taking up. Seven pounds, plus eight at the alterations place.

Boots. This is always the hard one. I found leather ankle boots, resoled at some point, half a size big. Fourteen pounds. With an insole, three more.

Total: fifty-six pounds. I spent some of the change on a scarf.

The Comparison

I am aware this looks like a sermon. I shall try to be fair.

The second-hand haul is better. The coat is real wool and will last years. The boots are leather and can be mended. On any measure of cost per wear, there is no contest.

But it took a whole Sunday, three bus fares and a great deal of luck. I am a size that charity shops tend to have. I had the time. I live near several. I know what to look for: turn the garment inside out, read the label for the fibre, check the armpits and the hem.

If I had two children and a Saturday job, I would not be spending a Sunday on the 48 bus hoping for a coat. I would go to the big shop, buy everything in forty minutes and get on with my life.

And second-hand lets you down on the basics. Nobody donates good socks. Underwear, tights, plain T-shirts, a school uniform that must be a particular colour: for those you go to the cheap shop, and nine-pound jeans and seven-pound pyjamas are a real help.

So I am not going to tell anyone that buying cheap and new is a moral failing. It is frequently the only practical answer.

What Cheap Costs

I do wonder how a pair of jeans can be made, shipped and sold for nine pounds. I asked the same about the previous price, which was already low. The company publishes a good deal about its suppliers, more than some dearer brands, and I have no evidence of anything improper.

What I can say from experience is where the saving shows up for the buyer. It is in the cloth. Thin denim, acrylic, glued soles. They are designed to be replaced.

For someone who has nine pounds today, that is the right product. For someone who could find forty, a pair that lasts five times as long would be cheaper. Being broke is expensive. It always has been.

Rules I Have Learned

Buy the coat and the boots second-hand. They are where quality matters most and where the new price is highest.

Buy the basics new and cheap.

Natural fibres. Wool, cotton, leather. Read the label.

Learn to sew on a button. It is five minutes and it saves a coat.

Know a cobbler and an alterations place. A hem and a heel can rescue things you would otherwise bin.

Go to the charity shops in the areas where wealthy people live. It is the only form of trickle-down I have ever seen work.

And never go to the big shop on a Saturday.

The Coat

I sewed the button on last night. The coat is hanging on the back of my door. Eighteen pounds. Somebody wore it before me and looked after it.

I have forty-one pounds left in the envelope. I am going to leave it there. In this city that counts as a triumph.

The London Prat considers the economics of looking presentable in its British satirical news on dressing for under a hundred pounds and its London satirical news about charity shop finds. Bohiney Magazine covers the American thrift store, which I am told is the size of an aircraft hangar.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/