Gone Shopping...Again June 10 2015

Are you are serial shopper?  If you are, you're far from alone.  Most of our clothes are worn just seven times before they are left lurking in the back of the wardrobe.  For a third of us it could be an item is considered old after just three outings.  That stunning drop-dead gorgeous dress is the style of clothing most likely to be worn once and then never again. This leads the average woman to spend £64 per month or £678 per year - which some shopaholics may consider a little on the low side, particularly when matched with the average time between purchases being 89 days.  

Based on a study by Censuswide for Barnardo's of women aged over the age of 16, perhaps these figures probably go up and down dramatically between different age groups; especially as two of the key reasons for ditching clothes was weight change for just under half respondents and one in seven feared being tagged twice on social media sites in the same outfit. What horror!!!

So where do all these unworn clothes go?  Most are still lurking in the back of our wardrobes.  The average woman has at least ten items in her wardrobe that she never wears.  In the UK as a whole this equates to a staggering £30 billion of unworn clothes lurking in closets.

Before you head to the shops, leaving our personalised 'Gone Shopping' sign behind, clutching your monthly £64 for yet another clothing splurge, have a thought for your wardrobe bursting at the seams with unworn or barely worn purchases and what good they could do others.  Barnardo's has launched a  campaign with the  very modest aim of gathering over £100,000 in clothing donations.  In the light of these statistics, if everyone gave a second life to their unloved items by taking them to their local Barnardo's charity shop, this could be one of the most successful campaigns ever.  Now that would be worth putting on social media!