SEW YOUR OWN
BEING ONE MAN’S ATTEMPT TO SURVIVE
ECONOMIC MELTDOWN, TACKLE CLIMATE
CHANGE, AND FIND THE MEANING OF LIFE – BY
MAKING HIS OWN CLOTHES
INCLUDING: why his wife won’t always allow him to wear
his home-made clothes in PUBLIC
AND: his journey, as a lifelong unbeliever, through various
Christian churches, in a search for the right fit for his soul,
and encounters with Buddhists
PLUS: a similar journey across the political spectrum, leading him to disillusionment, and finally to a determination to do whatever needs doing himself, of which CLOTHES-MAKING is only one example, the others including tackling terrorism, economic revival through barter, restorative justice, and managing pest control
FEATURING: film stars RICHARD GERE and Daryl Hannah, politicians and campaigners, criminals and priests, the Victorian essayist John Ruskin, injured New York-based sweatshop operatives, British TV’s celebrated petrol-head JEREMY CLARKSON and the anti-road protestor who stuck a pie in his face, members of the ancient guild of spinners, dyers and weavers, the Quaker philanthropist Elizabeth Fry, call-centre workers in Bangalore, the author’s wife’s 99-year-old Great-Aunt Peggy, a “naked yoga” teacher, Prince Charles’s own Savile Row tailor, a “personal shopper”, the German army of the First World War, MAHATMA GANDHI, the Buddha,
Jesus Christ and Vivienne Westwood.
“Makes The Lord of The Flies look like a soft-soap cover-up.”
THE GUARDIAN
“A light-footed comic autobiography.”
THE BIG ISSUE
“Often hilarious … the timing of a natural.”
THE SUNDAY TIMES
“I hope John-Paul Flintoff is a fast runner. He’ll need to be if his
old classmates at Holland Park Comprehensive ever find him.
Flintoff has written an hilariously merciless memoir.”
METRO
“It has faint echoes of the tender bravado of Salinger’s Catcher
in the Rye and gives a nod to the wicked young Amis of
The Rachel Papers. But mostly Flintoff writes as his own
likeable, transparent self.”
NEW STATESMAN
“Hilarious, hair-raising narrative … manages to be both
supremely entertaining and an invaluable social document.
The closing “register” of what happened to Flintoff’s old
school friends is priceless.”
DAILY TELEGRAPH
“Very readable, in an Adrian Mole-possessed-by-Satan
kind of way.”
THE SPECTATOR
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I couldn’t have written this book without many, many people giving me their time – a good number of them mentioned in this book, and others whose books gave me ideas (see Further Reading). Then there are the many editors who commissioned me (and in one case, Harriet) to write about some of the subjects in this book, and the other editors and photographers and illustrators and designers and publicists who helped to present my (and her) words to good effect. Maddy Harland, Tony Rollinson and the wonderful team at Permaculture magazine encouraged me to write the book in the first place, and worked like stink on its behalf; while Mark Ellingham, Ruth Killick and Kate Griffin at Profile have been consistently professional, enthusiastic and fun to work with. I’m truly, deeply grateful to them all, and owe a particular debt to Anna Guyer and Joe McAllister for quite extraordinarily generous help. My family and friends have been utterly supportive too, but most especially Nancy and Harriet. Thank you everybody.
PUBLISHING DETAILS
SEW YOUR OWN © 2010 by John-Paul Flintoff. An earlier version of this book,
Through The Eye of a Needle, was published in 2009 by Permanent Publications.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without
permission from the publisher except for the quotation of brief passages in
reviews.
Typeset in lowan Old Style BT to a design by Henry Iles.
First published in this new edition in 2010 by
Profile Books, 3A Exmouth House
Pine Street, Exmouth Market
London, EC1R OJH
Printed in the UK by CPI Bookmarque, Croydon, CR0 4TD,
on Forest Stewardship Council (mixed sources) certified paper.
256pp
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1846688928
PROLOGUE
1 A TALE OF THREE SUITS
In which the author jets across the Atlantic to be fitted for a
suit by a robot, and road-tests a “washable suit”
2 SWEATSHOP PEOPLE
Meeting sweatshop workers in New York, the author fails
even for a second to consider that his own clothes might be
made by people in similar conditions
3 SERIOUS SHOPPING
To avoid the boring side of shopping, the author hires a
“personal shopper”
4 MORE MEN IN SUITS
In which the author tries shopping for religion – and starts
with the Mormons
5 OUTSOURCING… MY LIFE
Inspired by the example of big business, the author
“outsources” the trying parts of his everyday life to India
6 THE SCOTS FREE CHURCH
The spiritual pilgrimage continues
7 THE MAN FROM RENTOKIL
In which the author is troubled by rats invading his home,
and gets in experts
8 LOADS OF RUBBISH
After working as a dustman, the author visits a landfill site
9 SEWING LESSONS
Upon visiting a local seamstress, the author considers whether
he might be able to do some of his wife’s clothes adjustments
himself, saving considerable sums
10 SOUL FOR SALE (STILL)
In which we ponder the difference between a corpse and a
human being
11 BLU-TACK THUMB
How a man named Danny Wallace started something beautiful
on a whim, making the author’s similarly whimsical religious
pilgrimage seem rather hollow
12 THE MISSIONARY POSITION
On the streets with the Book of Mormon
13 A DEPRESSING CHAPTER
In which the author gets worried about peak oil, mass starvation
and suchlike
14 VIEW FROM A SOAPBOX
Hoping to “save the world”, the author throws himself into
mainstream politics
15 GREEN AND GREEN
Clothes shopping with the Green Goddess who put the tickets
on 4×4s
16 THE ANTI-GREEN
In which a well-known petrolhead has a custard pie shoved in
his face
17 A SECRET SOCIETY
A Hollywood actor observes that we are “all in the same boat”
and inspires the author to look into Buddhism
18 BUDDHIST DISHWASHING
The author submits himself as pupil to a Vietnamese Zen monk
19 PART OF THE PROBLEM?
Or part of the solution?
20 BAGGY SHIRTS
The author uploads his first video, about shirt-making, to
Threadbangers
21 HOME TRUTHS
Why home-made is usually best and we should pay more
attention to Ruskin
22 CATWALK TIME
In which we meet designers and second-hand merchants
23 DOWN WITH EXPLOITATION!
Does it really make sense to make British clothes in India and
China?
24 UNDERPANTS
A lament on their declining quality
25 MAKE DO AND MEND
The author buys a treadle-powered sewing machine,
guaranteed to work even when the lights go out
26 TIME ISN’T MONEY
And whisper it quietly – sewing is a lot of fun, especially for
blokes
27 PERMACULTURE
In which the author discovers there is a philosophy to digging
and growing
28 THE RATS RETURN
A refreshingly manly chapter
29 YOUNG PRETENDERS
Swap-O-Rama-Rama… and that woman on the five pound note
30 FRESH AIR MACHINE
A homage to Mr Cutler, my old teacher
31 LIGHT UNDER A BUSHEL
Why is religion so embarrassing?
32 COMMANDMENTS
A trip to Oxford Street and an experiment with the Biblical life
33 GETTING PRACTICAL
Copying the Brooks Brothers shirt – with help from Great Aunt
Peggy
34 BEING CHILDISH
In which the author is inspired to have another go at painting
pictures
35 KNITTING
Wherein the author hopes to re-establish the Victorian
Workhouse
36 HINDUISM AND JEANS
While his wife is out, the author makes a pair of jeans. For the
fly, he uses spare buttons from old cheap suits
37 NETTLE WARS
How German soldiers, during World War One, went into battle
wearing nettle, and why we might all soon do the same (wear
nettle, that is, not go into battle)
38 COBBLERS
Welcome to the world of diy shoemaking
39 PRICK YOUR FINGER
In which things take another odd turn as the author gets
hooked on spinning
40 APPRENTICED
And in Savile Row, no less
41 DASHING TWEEDS
Forbidden to wear his home-made jeans publicly, the author
meets Guy Hills, who cycles in luminous plus-fours and cape
42 HARRIET HAS HER SAY
A bit of a break in the narrative
43 SHOULD A MAN CROCHET IN PUBLIC?
The author puts the dude question to an American expert
44 ANCIENT WOOLLEN UNDERPANTS
And introducing twice-sheared sheep
45 CHURCH OF CRAFT
The Kingdom of Heaven is within you
FURTHER READING
I didn’t mean to go on a quest. That was never the plan. But one thing led to another – I read things, I met people – and suddenly I was a man on a mission.
Mind you, it wasn’t always obvious to me how one thing connected to the next. How could it be? Who would ever have imagined that their search for meaning would take them from an upmarket New York clothes shop to lunchtime mass at a Catholic church in London; from a call centre in Bangalore to catching rats in the cellar at home; from working as a dustman to standing on a soap box giving speeches on Brighton Pier? I, for one, certainly couldn’t have predicted it.
But that’s how it turned out. Those are the experiences that brought me here, in the middle of rush hour, to the City branch of the Northern Line, on a carriage crowded with people dressed in smart clothes, with expensive accessories. I used to be just like these people, and wore the same kind of clothes.
Not any more.
These days I tend to wear home-made. Today, every item of clothing on me has either been made from scratch, or significantly modified or repaired. Not that I would expect you to notice: indeed, I try to make the clothes look just as good as the ones I used to buy. If I didn’t, my wife might not let me out of the house in them.
But there’s no point making clothes yourself and keeping it secret. Not if you want the whole world to start doing the same. Not if you believe, as I do, that home-made, locally sourced clothes are as important to the survival of our species as home-grown, locally sourced food; and similarly good for your wallet at a time when the economy is in collapse. Not if you believe that the act of making clothes is its own reward – an outlet for creativity and empowerment that used to be enjoyed by every person on the planet.
I didn’t come to these conclusions overnight, or by myself. I can’t even begin to count the number of people who influenced me, including some you would hardly believe, such as the celebrated petrolhead Jeremy Clarkson, and the anti-road protestor who stuck a pie in his face; the film stars Richard Gere and Daryl Hannah; politicians, criminals, guerilla gardeners, and injured sweatshop workers; the Victorian essayist John Ruskin; my wife’s 99-year-old great-aunt Peggy Parker, a “naked yoga” teacher and Prince Charles’s own Savile Row tailor; the Buddha, Jesus Christ and Vivienne Westwood?
But the person who’s at the forefront of my mind as I sit on this train is Gandhi. He predicted that if Indians learned to grow their own plants and spun and wove the fibres into cloth themselves, and used that to make their own clothes, they would destroy the British cotton industry and ultimately overthrow the British Empire. And he was right.
“Be the change you want to see in the world,” Gandhi said. And he did it too: not only wearing homespun clothes but actually taking his spinning wheel to political meetings.
Me, I don’t have a spinning wheel – yet.
But I do have a crochet hook. It’s hidden in the pocket of my jacket. In the other pocket, I’ve got some yarn.
I look around me casually at the passengers who pretend, as ever, not to be looking at each other. I know that they are looking really, surreptitiously glancing at anything out of the ordinary. Do I dare to take out the hook, and the yarn, and Be the Change …?
IN WHICH THE AUTHOR JETS ACROSS THE
ATLANTIC TO BE FITTED FOR A SUIT BY A ROBOT,
AND ROAD-TESTS A “WASHABLE SUIT”
Like many of us at the turn of the millennium, amid a dotcom bubble that was yet to burst, I was dazzled by high tech. For this reason, when I flew to New York for work I took myself to an upmarket clothing store to be measured for a suit by lasers. There, I discovered that, besides having defects that were immediately apparent, my body was imperfect in a multitude of ways.
The lights cast by the digital scanner captured approximately 200,000 body measurements in less than five seconds. This revealed that my right shoulder is more than half an inch lower than my left. My neck is too thick and shoulders too broad for my narrow frame. I had a vague notion of this beforehand because off-the-peg outfits, if they fitted at the neck and shoulders, tended to be baggy. Now I knew for sure.
During the scan, which took place in the privacy of a felt-lined chamber, I was encouraged by a pre-recorded female voice and further assisted, from outside, by a human assistant communicating by headset. As the measurements came through, they were converted by computer into a virtual mannequin. And when the scan had finished, I stepped outside and started putting together a custom-made suit fitted exactly to my quirky body shape.
Naturally, there are issues to resolve before buying a suit, which in the “digital tailoring” department at Brooks Brothers cost between $700 and $1,300. Side vents? Belt loops? Back pockets? Plain cloth or check? The assistants know better than most customers – better than me, anyway – which shapes and fabrics suit any given body shape. The finished outfit, I was promised, would be ready in a fortnight. Additional orders could be placed by phone or email. The virtual mannequin would remain on the store’s computer forever – or until the customer, gaining or losing significant quantities of weight, needs scanning anew.
I liked the system so much I ordered two suits. Additionally, the human assistant with the headset very kindly threw in a free shirt – though he added, regretfully, that this would be available only in one of two fabrics left over in surplus. Neither particularly appealed to me, but the shirt was free so I opted for the slatey blue – a colour I suspected might give me a rather sickly pallor.
Some weeks later, the shirt and the suits arrived in London in big parcels, on which I had to pay a substantial amount in tax. I tried them on. The coats on the suits seemed oddly long and boxy, but in other respects the fit was excellent. As for the shirt – well, if you haven’t worn a fitted shirt you just don’t know what you’re missing. It feels fantastic, extraordinarily comfortable, rather like a second skin. Certainly an awful lot better than the hot-air balloons I’d been buying at Thomas Pink, each one costing a small fortune.
But as I had guessed, the colour of the Brooks Brothers shirt didn’t suit me. My wife disliked it, and she absolutely hated the suits. The long coats, Harriet announced, looked very odd indeed.
I find it hard to wear something after Harriet has told me she dislikes it. It’s a bit like carrying on watching comedy on TV after she has asked, “Do you really think this is funny?” Her dim view of my new clothes was extremely demoralising, not least because I had spent several hundred pounds.
For what it’s worth, I know that Harriet has my interests at heart. OK, she has her own interests at heart, because she doesn’t relish being seen with somebody dressed peculiarly, or badly, but she does also sincerely not want me to look bad even when she’s not there. This explains why, after several years, I have worn the fitted shirt fewer than five times, and never worn either of my Brooks Brothers suits – not once. Well, not for more than five minutes every couple of years, when I try them on to see whether they are really as bad as we thought – and they still are.
What I tend to wear instead, if I wear a suit at all – which is extremely rare now that I no longer work in an office – is a cheap off-the-peg suit I bought at Marks & Spencer three years later because it was sold as machine-washable. If suits were easy to clean, I thought at the time, perhaps I would wear them all the time – transforming my image from scruffy heap to suave James Bond type?
I was aware that men who have young children get their suits dirty all the time, because babies chuck up on them, and because I was about to become a father I was trying to make space in my budget for a dramatically larger dry-cleaning bill. A washable suit, it seemed obvious, would reduce that expense. So I ordered one in navy blue with narrow white pinstripes. (It cost £125; and was also available in black, with a dinner suit for slightly more money.) When it arrived I was impressed. Of course, it didn’t fit as well as the bespoke ones – the jacket was slightly loose around the back – but that seemed an acceptable trade-off.
To test the suit properly, I wore it for a few days to the office of the Financial Times, the newspaper where I then worked, to unrestrained expressions of surprise from colleagues more used to seeing me in jeans. I wore it on trains, aeroplanes and taxis as I travelled to interview, among others, a de facto head of state and a representative of Russia’s imperial family in exile.
Neither of those eminent figures looked askance at the suit, perhaps because they were unable to detect by eye alone the considerable proportion of artificial fibres in the wool blend. (But then, one of these men wore jeans and the other told me M&S was his favourite tailor, so they could hardly sniff.)
SUIT TEST: ZACHARY BROWN DOES HIS STUFF
Even after several days, the suit still wasn’t dirty enough. I made a few calls. My nephew, one-year-old Zachary Brown, gave me to understand that he was happy to help out: we could muck about in the garden, perhaps eat ice cream together. He hinted that if I came round after four, when his older brothers Joseph and Reuben got back from swimming, they might be willing to help too.
I turned up as agreed, accompanied by the Financial Times photographer Charlie Bibby (my washable suit had made such an impression, I’d been asked to write about it). The children dutifully jumped on me, at Charlie’s request, and Zac tirelessly dabbled his finger in ice cream to smear it on my lapels.
So far as it went, this seemed satisfactory. But Charlie felt that the suit still didn’t look particularly dirty. With a glint in his eye he said it might help if I checked the oil in his car and gave it a quick wash. I knew what he was up to – getting a free carwash – but did as he requested, even allowing the front of the jacket to sweep through the soapy lather on the bonnet.
On the faces of passers-by, I could read the following question: “Why is that man cleaning his car in his suit?” The answer – “because I can” – would seem to confirm that M&S has created a sartorial item of real value, if possibly a little niche. Certainly, this alone couldn’t account for the company’s boast that washable suits had become bestsellers.
I took the suit home, stuffed it inside the conveniently supplied washing net, and shoved the whole lot in the machine at 40 degrees. Afterwards, I shook it vigorously and hung it up to dry. By the next morning the suit was dry and largely – though not entirely – free of creases. (The ones down the front of the trousers, which are supposed to be there, still were.)
MEETING SWEATSHOP WORKERS IN NEW YORK,
THE AUTHOR FAILS EVEN FOR A SECOND TO
CONSIDER THAT HIS OWN CLOTHES MIGHT BE
MADE BY PEOPLE IN SIMILAR CONDITIONS
Five years later, the washable suit is still in good nick. But I don’t like it any more than the ones from Brooks Brothers. This may sound odd, if you’ve not yet experienced what I’ve experienced (bear with me on this), but I don’t like any of those suits because I don’t know who made them, and I don’t believe that love went into the making of them – well, at £125, how could it?
How was this not apparent to me before? Why did it not bother me then? Looking back, I feel astonished at how blinkered I was. Especially as, when I was in New York being measured up by lasers, I was researching a story about people making clothes in sweatshops right there in Manhattan.
I met several of the people involved. People like Lilia Luna, who had arrived in New York 12 years earlier, from Mexico, and immediately found work in a garment factory. That lasted a year, until she became pregnant. Then she got a job at a building on West 38th Street, on the sixth floor, making clothes for high-end fashion. Sixty women worked there, making evening gowns, jackets and coats. The loos were padlocked: workers could use them only after finishing their quota of work. Phones were not allowed. Surveillance cameras monitored the workers’ movements. Paid holidays and maternity leave did not exist. Even when workers requested unpaid time off it was commonly refused. Long hours at work – often eleven hours a day, six days a week – affected the women’s health. Most suffered neck, back, shoulder and leg pains. Meanwhile, their families suffered. One woman discovered that her son had been skipping school – but by the time she found out, he’d been doing it for a year.
Additionally, there was discrimination. Chinese Americans used sewing machines, Latin Americans stitched by hand. “The boss would say Latinas were not good with machines,” Luna said. “She said we would break them.”
LILIA LUNA AND HER DAUGHTER: “HOW COME THESE JACKETS ARE SO EXPENSIVE BUT WE GET PAID SO LITTLE?”
Having always worked alongside Spanish speakers, she learned little English. When I met her at her apartment in Harlem – amid gaudy images of the Virgin and frequent interventions from her youngest daughter – she spoke through an interpreter. Her manner was modest, she spoke quietly: it took time to get out of her how dreadful the job was.
Earnings were calculated on a piece rate, depriving workers of payments such as time-and-a-half for working more than 40 hours a week. And with complex, time-consuming garments, piece rate amounted to less than the minimum wage. “I was surprised to see how expensive the clothes were,” Luna told me. “Sometimes we would talk to each other and say, ‘How come these jackets are so expensive but we get paid so little?’”
Luna was one of several workers suing over conditions in the factory. Like the others, she would never be able to launch such a case alone. Adam Klein, the lawyer representing them, explained that his firm, Outten & Golden, was taking a risk and would only be paid if the case succeeded. “Individual workers can’t pay for this. And we can’t take on a case like this unless it’s a class action. You have to be doing it for all the workers together.”
“There is a lot at stake for these folks, personally,” he said. “They are concerned about retaliation. Many don’t speak English and a lot are undocumented” – not entitled to live and work in the US. “This is another reason they’re easy to exploit.”
The fashion company’s initial response to the lawsuit was a short statement asserting their concern, and revealing a “factory compliance program” to promote improved working conditions. Subsequently, they brought a motion to dismiss the case, arguing it was not directly responsible because the factory was run by a contractor. But the company’s reps were fully aware of conditions in the factory. “We saw them every day,” said Luna. “They would check the clothing that was finished and maybe look at how we were working. Then they would talk to the manager.” And the manager would pass on their demands to workers. “Their comments were very detailed.”
Altogether, some 93,000 people worked in clothes manufacturing in New York when I was there to research that story, and the Department of Labor estimated that more than half the 7,500 garment factories should be classed as sweatshops. “Most sweatshop activism in this country is about factories overseas. But people walk by New York’s sweatshops every day,” said Karah Newton, of the Brooklyn-based National Mobilization Against SweatShops. “The US model is one of the most brutal systems for keeping people working,” she added. Another activist, Betty Yu, said: “In other countries people are shot. Well, they don’t shoot people here because they want to keep them working.”
Newton and Yu introduced me to many other aggrieved and injured workers, including You Di Liao, a former rice farmer from China, who collapsed at another garment factory after working too many 16-hour days on her feet. I was fascinated to learn that there were sweatshops in New York. I thought they only existed in poor countries. And as I confessed earlier, it didn’t even occur to me that my own shirt and suits might be put together by people working in similar conditions. (They might not: for all I know Brooks Brothers has an impeccable employment record.) And none of it makes me feel any better about the fact that I’ve never worn those suits.
The fact is that we have all learned to depend unthinkingly on other people, working out of sight and out of mind; and it’s this combination of dependence and obliviousness that lies behind so many of the big problems facing us today. When we leave a light on, we don’t think of the miners digging coal to fire the power station, and the carbon emissions they produce. When we put the rubbish out, we don’t think of the vast acreage of landfill.
And we don’t want to think about it; when somebody points it out, we find it irritating or painful, like a poke in the eye. We call lamely for something to be done – but again, even here, we make ourselves dependent on others. We wait for the government to act, and when that fails to happen we feel disempowered: not only failing people like Lilia Luna and You Di Liao but also, as I’ve come to see it, failing ourselves.
But there is another way! It’s possible, and perhaps even time, to take control of our own destiny and change the world ourselves. And the business of clothing ourselves, second only to food and shelter, illustrates how we can do that as well as anything else.
TO AVOID THE BORING SIDE OF SHOPPING, THE
AUTHOR HIRES A “PERSONAL SHOPPER”
Taking control of your destiny doesn’t come easily. For as long as we can, we cling to the idea that others are better placed to fix things for us, either because they are more expert, or because they’re cheaper – or both.
For instance: cuffs fray, jeans go thin at the knees and bum, jackets snag, leaving loose threads to dangle messily, and eventually your partner suggests it’s time to buy yourself some more clothes. Well, mine does. And I do as I’m told, though – like many people – I hate shopping. As often as not the items I bring home from my sporadic retail adventures are deemed to be “not quite right”. In some cases, if they’re truly awful, they have to go back.
Since our daughter Nancy was born, my wife has enjoyed less time to oversee my clothing issues. Consequently I’ve found myself wearing tatty clothes far longer than I should. Not very long ago, I had lunch with a glamorous magazine editor, in a glamorous new restaurant, and set off from home in a jacket whose middle button had broken in half some weeks before. To hide that fault, I slipped the jacket off before joining her at the table – but admitting what I’d done after pudding, I realised it was time to get help. Which is how I found myself at a rendezvous with Nicola Robinson, London’s foremost personal shopper, under the clock at Selfridges. Through her company, Being Seen, Robinson advises up to 200 individual clients at a time on what clothes to buy, and where to buy them.
This may sound simple, but Nicola seems to remember the design, colour and availability of clothes at more shops than I’ve even heard of. Thus, instead of getting a headache as I struggle to comprehend Selfridges’s mighty sprawl, I can pad meekly behind Nicola and trust her to find whatever is needed. And I needn’t worry that she’s flogging me something unsuitable because she’s not tied to any particular shop or designer.
Naturally, this service is not cheap. But for £1,500 a quarter, Being Seen members get up to six hours of chauffeur-driven consultancy, home visits from tailors, clothes delivered to work on approval, invitations to the launch of new collections, and access to celebrity hair-stylists and make-up artists. More than a scruff like me would ever need, of course – but that’s OK because Nicola also works for £50 an hour.
All she knows about me, when we first meet, is my size. That’s enough for her to have put aside for me, in one of the store’s peaceful suites, dozens of trousers and jackets, boxed shirts by big-name designers and a sizeable heap of sweaters.
But what next? Should I strip, while Nicola watches, like it’s no big deal? Or pretend to be massively absorbed in each individual item, like a proper Being Seen client? I opt for the latter, and boldly pull out a sweater. Striving for the air of a connoisseur, I say I’d prefer not to wear anything in aubergine, and thrust the offending item into her hands.
That’s fine, she says cheerfully. She doesn’t want to force a “new look” on me, just get a clearer idea what I like. (At her office, she keeps a file on every client, with detailed notes on sizes and preferences.) And after I’ve outlined my clothing philosophy at greater length she goes off to find more.
Some of the items she’s put out cost a fortune, but I guess there’s no harm trying them. I slip on a pair of brown trousers by Nicole Farhi. Not bad, but not quite right. Then various jeans. Wearing a pair of Earnest Sewn, I try on a Prada shirt. It’s black, which is not a colour I’d normally wear, but I like the slim cut. And on Nicola’s return, I deliver my thoughts.
She agrees that Farhi’s trousers aren’t quite right. But she likes the jeans, urges me to take a Prada shirt in another colour, and asks which of three cord jackets, by Hackett, I prefer. (I opt for the brown one.) She also urges me to take a V-neck sweater by John Smedley.
We put everything aside and head together for Gap, just yards down Oxford Street. Here, Nicola whizzes round the shop piling clothes up in my arms: a brown cashmere sweater, a tweedy blazer and another with a blue stripe, a pair of brown cords, a dark grey shirt remarkably like the Prada, and a selection of T-shirts.
The total cost is £254. Then Nicola hurries me down South Molton Street towards Bond Street where she reckons I’ll find an even more appealing V-neck at John Smedley’s own shop than the one waiting for me at Selfridges. Alas, I don’t, so we whiz back to Selfridges to pay for the goods already set aside. Here, the total cost is £569. I try not to look horrified and thank Nicola for all her help.
At home, after we’ve put our daughter to bed, Harriet requests a little catwalk show, and I comply. After seeing each item, she announces that it’s all wonderful. Apart from the tweedy jacket (“a bit loud”). And the Gap shirt (“too trendy”). Oh, and the John Smedley jumper. But the rest, she says, I can keep.
I’m better dressed but not the slightest bit in control. Less so, perhaps, than ever.
IN WHICH THE AUTHOR TRIES SHOPPING FOR
RELIGION – AND STARTS WITH THE MORMONS
I flirted briefly with religion, one rainy afternoon, at age seven, after I’d watched some film about a nun. I climbed onto my bed, formed a steeple with my hands and asked God to supply me immediately with a new toy – or, failing that, some other outward sign of His existence. Nothing occurred. So I trotted off to ask my mother whether she believed in God. Hemming and hawing, it seemed on balance that she didn’t. And that was that.
But my lack of faith, though common enough, is not the only story. While many of Britain’s churches have turned into bars, restaurants and apartment blocks, that process is two-way: elsewhere, congregations have adopted premises previously used as snooker halls, offices and even petrol stations. Millions of British Christians meet regularly for worship. So, unconfirmed and unbaptised, I began to wonder what I might have missed.
It was August and, with consumerist zeal, I decided to sample the Christian denominations to see if any suited me. If I hadn’t become a Christian by Christmas, I would give up, and maybe next year try some other religion. So I drew up a shortlist, noting each church’s Unique Selling Point, then photocopied a map of the UK to pick out branches at random. And so it turned out that my first shot was the Mormons – and, as luck would have it, the South Kensington branch.
I was planning on writing these meetings up for the newspaper, so I called ahead to speak to a man called Corey Chivers, who worked as a lawyer in the week, and at weekends was a bishop at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (to use the full Mormon title). I asked Corey if his colleagues knew about his other life. “People know I don’t drink or smoke, so in that sense I stand out,” he offered. “Also, I never come into the office on a Sunday.” Beyond this, he explained, even rank-and-file Mormons avoid extra-marital sex, and undertake to give one-tenth of their income to the church. They believe that Christ reappeared in America – because that’s what it says in the Book of Mormon, brought to light by the church’s first prophet, Joseph Smith. When they are young, Mormon men undertake a two-year mission – largely self-financed – to spread the Gospels.
“We believe the Gospels will make you happy,” Chivers said. “Everything around us is designed to make us selfish, and lie, and think of ourselves first – but we say, no!, I’m going to love my neighbour and look out for outcasts and the underprivileged. As you do that, you become extremely happy. Don’t just take our word for it. Pray for it sincerely, after having studied. Literally get down on your knees and ask God to tell you this is right. We will have you converted by the end.”
When Sunday came, I put on a suit – Chivers particularly recommended that – and drove nervously to the 1960s church on Exhibition Road. Crossing the threshold, I found myself shaking hands with a long series of smiling people who asked – mostly in American accents – for my name, and where I came from. They also gave me a name badge.
In the crowded hall, the benches were luxuriously padded – which perhaps explains why nobody stood up to sing hymns. Nor did anybody move for communion. The body of Christ was brought to us in our seats: I took a piece, and popped it in my mouth. Nothing happened. Next came the blood… which turned out not to be wine, but water. (I took some anyway. Still nothing.)
Then began a part of the service which Chivers claimed to be unique: personal testimony from members of the church. “Usually it’s very positive,” he had warned. “But sometimes when I hear it I cringe, and wish I had a trapdoor.” I could soon see what he meant: testimony, typically, consisted of children asserting love for parents, or vice versa – and also for Joseph Smith – before reciting the Mormon catchphrase, “I know the church is true.” Charming to begin with, this soon became mind-numbing.
There were exceptions. One man stepped forward to say, shockingly, that he’d received a letter informing him that his father, in Africa, had died. “At the moment I’m a sorrowful person,” he stated, unnecessarily, “and I wanted to share this with you because I feel so much love”. A young missionary broke into tears even before reaching the lectern. “I love the Scriptures,” he sobbed. “The desire that you have to learn about the Gospel brings me great joy.” (Despite this, he pulled a long face, and sniffed.) Another who burst into tears was a middle-aged woman: “I look at this congregation and feel I love you all. We have more than fifty nations here. I love you. I can’t call you all by name but I love you!”
After an hour or so of this, the testimony ended. Bishop Chivers, coming to find me, suggested a scripture class on the Book of Mormon, led by a woman with half-moon spectacles. “Can you see what a wonderful person you could be?” she said at one point. “These are not easy commandments to follow. To love someone who hates you takes a lot of practice ̾”
Before the class finished, Chivers conveyed me outside, for a tour of the church. Wherever he went, people slipped him envelopes – containing, presumably, tithed income in cash and cheques. On the stairs, a man shuffled up to Chivers, asking for an appointment. Politely, the bishop introduced me to this man – a beneficiary of Mormon welfare programmes, he later explained – and reflexively I stuck out my hand. Too late did I notice that he smelled strongly of poo. Retrospectively, I see that this was a perfect opportunity to love my neighbour – but for the next ninety minutes, until I found a washbasin, I thought chiefly of the germs on my palm.
Next, Chivers led me upstairs, to a room where male members of the church – dressed in dark suits, like a convention of salesmen – had gathered for a “priesthood meeting”. This, to my horror, comprised testimony even more banal than before: “I would like to talk about the welfare of my soul,” said one American, typical of others. “I’m with one of the private equity shops in town. It’s very stressful. I would have a hard time keeping balance were it not for the Gospels. I know the church is true.”
After three hours, I was parched; the low ceiling and bright lights were making me ill. I couldn’t take much more. It all seemed to confirm my worst preconceptions: that religion was boring and creepy. I wasn’t too sure I could take a whole lot more Christian Sundays.
INSPIRED BY THE EXAMPLE OF BIG BUSINESS, THE
AUTHOR “OUTSOURCES” THE TRYING PARTS OF HIS
EVERYDAY LIFE TO INDIA
Having put my shopping in the hands of a professional, and set about locating an organisation to look after my soul, I suppose my next move was predictable: I decided to outsource my life.