Living out of the clothes stores

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Living out of the clothes stores
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Florence

Joined: 15 Mar 2025
Posts: 431

Posted: Thu Jan 08, 26 12:19 pm Post subject: Living out of the clothes stores

Today I'm waiting for the second pair of sturdy boots bought reduced. These will do the heavy lifting in dire weather or really wet weather. 3 pairs of sandals which will last a couple of years as they are sturdier than they look.

Socks enough for years, knickers beyond number, tee shirts that don't need ironing and a few posher ones that do, 6 pairs of trousers, sweatshirts of various thickness uncounted but too many, couple of decent jackets.

I can remember having one pair of shoes, and 3 changes of top clothes along with underwear to allow for one on, one in the wash and one in the wardrobe. And one coat.

gz

Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 9573
Location: Ayrshire, Scotland

Posted: Thu Jan 08, 26 3:09 pm Post subject:
I have the advantage of being just about the same size in most things as Pirate, so I inherited A LOT of clothes and shoes In the Festive sort out session passed on a lot of clothes.... including dresses that I hardly wore...and no longer fit ðŸ˜ŽðŸ˜„

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 16946

Posted: Thu Jan 08, 26 6:36 pm Post subject:

I have a lot of good clothes that I occasionally wear and some of them are very old. I got rid of a lot of things a while back to great nieces from the 1960s and 70s as they had come back into fashion at least twice in that time. I reknit my socks I wear for work, but may need to buy some more yarn eventually to keep a reasonable number of pairs going. Think I am all right for underwear, which seems to be the thing I most often buy.

Florence

Joined: 15 Mar 2025
Posts: 431

Posted: Fri Jan 09, 26 8:03 am Post subject:
The second pair of treaded mini boots arrived by way of Royal Mail yesterday. Am now properly weather proof in the line of shoes, Plenty of heavy duty sandal type shoes for decent weather and "going out" when the weather isn't slippery under foot.

Florence

Joined: 15 Mar 2025
Posts: 431

Posted: Fri Jan 09, 26 8:59 am Post subject:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000q9g6 This is an old and often tried experiment. And the result is usually the same. It proves that we in the UK can't feed and clothe ourselves. As many similar experiments have shown.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 16946

Posted: Fri Jan 09, 26 3:57 pm Post subject:

We haven't been able to feed ourselves since some time in the 19th century as there are too many people for the available land. In some ways omnivores are better off than vegetarians or vegans. Virtually all of the meat I buy is British; in fact mostly local. I do buy some fruit and vegetables which have to be imported, but that is choice. I could probably manage without them, but it might need a great deal more work foraging and drying fruit for the winter. There are usually either seasonal vegetables or fruit available.

The main problems with food are things like cereals and pulses. A lot of wheat is imported (although the bread flour I buy is mostly British), rice and more exotic cereals can't be grown in the UK, and a lot of pulses can't be either.

As for clothes, it is cheaper to import so most British manufacturers either have to get things made abroad or be rather exclusive and only available to those that can afford it. There are still some fabric producers in the UK, but not that many, so even most cloth is imported. The only fully British fabrics have to be all wool or all linen though as nothing else is made a lot here and most other natural fibres apart from hemp don't grow here. Not sure about artificial fibres.

Manufacturing has gone mainly overseas as it is cheaper to make where cost of living is lower. Some specialist things are still made here; I get quite a lot of people wanting besoms for instance, but cars are either made by foreign manufacturers or made abroad, and besoms aren't an alternative form of transport, it just came out like that.

Florence

Joined: 15 Mar 2025
Posts: 431

Posted: Sat Jan 10, 26 9:24 am Post subject:
My shoes are made in the UK. But that's only because they are specialist and have a ready market. I'm not sure that all the materials are UK made though.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 16946

Posted: Sat Jan 10, 26 8:46 pm Post subject:

Sometimes it is difficult to tell. Not sure what your shoes are made of, but our son is a leather worker and although he buys leather from UK suppliers, there is no way of tracing hides. All British meat has to be traced from farm/animal to plate, but there is no such requirement for the hides, so they could be sent to Italy for processing, or they could be Italian/Spanish/French etc. hides that have been processed in the UK and sold here.

Cloth and plastic are not likely to be fully British sourced, but some may be.

One think I do know about my hand knitted jumpers is that the wool is British and very local. I have often seen the animal or know which farm the fleece came from that I spin. All the things we make from the woods are very local; most of the wood and timber is from our wood or the wood next door. The only think I am unsure about is the original source of the contents of the wire and nails I use to make the besoms.

Florence

Joined: 15 Mar 2025
Posts: 431

Posted: Mon Jan 12, 26 8:59 am Post subject:
My shoes are leather for heavy duty in the case of anti social weather which we do have locally. Most of the sandals are likewise leather based. Not ideal for a vegan but one has to have shoes that fit. Well I do anyway.

gz

Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 9573
Location: Ayrshire, Scotland

Posted: Mon Jan 12, 26 9:18 am Post subject:
The Oily One's friend is a rather militant vegan .eating out is problematical...picnics or vegan only restaurants..but that does mean that a lot of research gets done...and they have found a source of vegan leather substitute shoes and boots. I've seen them and they look good quality. Would you like me to ask for the details?

Florence

Joined: 15 Mar 2025
Posts: 431

Posted: Mon Jan 12, 26 10:12 am Post subject:
Yes please gz, all such information good. I can do rather militant vegan eating out at the moment. Your militant friend would do just fine here.

Florence

Joined: 15 Mar 2025
Posts: 431

Posted: Fri Jan 16, 26 9:13 am Post subject:
Trouble with living out of the cupboard with clothes is that I can get awfully bored though there's a good variety in the large wardrobe. I get periodic itches to ditch the lot and start again as it's all long wearing stuff. That which came to the end of use was removed last year.

gz

Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 9573
Location: Ayrshire, Scotland

Posted: Fri Jan 16, 26 10:30 am Post subject:

Florence wrote:

Yes please gz, all such information good.

I can do rather militant vegan eating out at the moment. Your militant friend would do just fine here.

Friend's response..
"
Erm on the boots side I normally go vegetarian shoes expensive but mostly made in Portugal and pretty decent and decent range. To be fair though I mostly wear vivobarefoot shoes at moment. But if want something cheaper than the ethical brands internet search should help.

Alt berg do a good pair of vegan boots they are one of the only uk companies who will still custom make boots in uk or used to.

Ethical wares are ok but to be honest I have had some of theirs and some of vegetarian shoes walking boots and the veg shoes are better"

Florence

Joined: 15 Mar 2025
Posts: 431

Posted: Fri Jan 16, 26 4:32 pm Post subject:
Thanks gz. Alt berg are interesting - they do stock some Cosyfeet items I notice. But more expensive. But interesting for boots. Ethical Wares seems to be closing down any day now.

gz

Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 9573
Location: Ayrshire, Scotland

Posted: Fri Jan 16, 26 6:57 pm Post subject:
I'll pass that news back

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