I Only Bought 5 Items Of Clothing This Year. Here’s What I Learned

When I committed to only adding five things to my wardrobe at the start of 2023, I wasn’t particularly daunted. If anything, I was worried it wasn’t ambitious enough. After all, in my role as British Vogue’s sustainability editor, I’m always telling people to buy better and buy less – and being allowed five new pieces sounded pretty generous to me. Why five? Well, according to a report by the Hot or Cool Institute published in 2022, everyone in the world needs to reduce their annual fashion consumption to that figure for the industry to stay within its carbon budget – ie reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by the amount needed in order to keep global warming to 1.5C – if nothing else changes.