Playing for Keeps. Why We Should Buy With the Intention to Keep.

It seems like an obvious thing to do: buy clothes, wear clothes, and rewear your clothes. However, I’ve come to realise that people are no longer buying with the intention of keeping their clothes for the long term.

The "cycle-out culture" seems to have gained momentum. I particularly dislike the one-in-one-out rule some people cite as justification for new purchases — having to “let something go” to make room for something new. But is this just a guilt-free pass to consume more and become attuned to the idea that clothes are disposable?

So I ask, what if you had to keep everything you ever purchased?

How would that change the mindset around how you shop?

According to a report from the Australian Institute’s independent think tank, Australians have become the biggest fashion consumers in the world. The average number of new clothing items an Australian purchases each year is 56. That’s more than one new item per week. If you were to go off our 40 wardrobe essentials list, that’s buying more than a whole new wardrobe every single year — something that isn’t justifiable by any means.

Out of those 56 items, how many do you think are kept for more than a year? Well, according to further stats, not many. Research from the ABC’s War on Waste reveals that the average Australian purchases 27kg of new clothes and textiles every year and discards 23kg into landfill. We can do the maths, right? That’s holding onto just 4kg. If we do some more calculations based on these two pieces of data, if 56 items equal 27kg, that’s an average of 482g per item. And if we’re only left with 4kg, that would mean keeping 8 items and discarding 48.

But wait a minute, you might ask, I don’t put my clothes in the bin — I mostly donate or resell through various resale channels. Ah, the invisible loophole. It’s not me, it’s someone else.

Clothes donated to charity should be items of value — something they can sell to raise money, which they then use to support people in need. To emphasise this point, most often what they need is not clothes, but money.

On the Australian Red Cross website, they state it pretty clearly: "Your donations should be worth buying — if you wouldn’t buy it, then we probably won’t be able to sell it." Yet I feel not everyone understands the purpose and still treats charity “bins” as exactly that — a bin.

So, what can we do to get ourselves out of this mess and not contribute to these troubling statistics? We know we need to buy less, but we also need to keep more. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: If you know you need to keep something, you’ll inevitably buy less, and when you buy less, you’ll keep more.

So, the next time you’re adding to your cart or walking up to the cash register, ask yourself this simple question: Would I be willing to hold onto this item, forever?