September Shorts: Denim and Degrowth

Back in August I read and photographed this op-ed in the paper. The economy is slipping towards the inevitable recession that everyone except the 52% that mattered knew would come with Brexit, and this dude - along with many others - is frothing at the mouth about it. We need to be consuming more, he argues. We should be earning as much as we can then shelling out the lion's share. Spend, spend, spend; it'll liberate us, right?

His beef is degrowth, which is being discussed in - as he puts it - 'juice bars.' Quite who he imagines frequents these juice bars is left to the readers' imagination but they sound like my kinda people. Because degrowth is the deliberate management of the economy to reduce rather than encourage unnecessary consumption even at the expense of GDP.

It made me think of my jeans policy. Whoa. Wait a minute - I've not mentioned my jeans policy before?  I've been remiss. My jeans policy is so simple it can be expressed in seven words. Never buy a new pair of jeans. Boom, there you go - eight words, boom included.

Why this approach to denim? Well, I like Nudie Jeans; handsome Swedish pants that cost £120 new. I can get a second-hand pair on eBay for about £30. Because of the water-intense production-process for cotton, I'm saving further unnecessary environmental costs. And I get to pocket circa 90 sheets of savings and wear jeans that look like they've seen some action; sorta vicariously borrowed action courtesy of the previous owner... who prob'ly also bagged them second-hand. Heritage jeans, man. Jeans with terroir. Denim with wabi sabi.

It's not just jeans. I'm trying to be as economically inactive as possible these days. Earn less, spend less. Basically, I'm doing on an individual scale what a Tory government does on grander scale. Less in, less out. Plus the irony's pretty sweet - what they do on the macro is the reverse of what they want on the micro. We're allowed to spend next to nothing, leaving you with dog-eared towns and crumbling public services but you guys? You need to be shopping your arses off.

Except those of us in the juice bars, presumably.