I love a bargain so how did my year of secondhand fashion go?

The other reason is to try and be more sustainable generally. This week marks 10 years since the Rana Plaza clothing factory collapse, a completely avoidable tragedy in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which killed 1,134 people.

In the wake of it, many businesses pledged to do better ethically with more sustainable, more transparent manufacturing practices including brands signing up to the International Accord to safeguard worker safety in Bangladesh, Pakistan and beyond. There have been some improvements and there are excellent organisations working in this field such as the Clean Clothes Campaign and Good On You.

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However, Industriall, an affiliation of unions representing over 50 million workers in 140 countries, says ten years on, manufacturers, "must take greater responsibility for worker safety in their supply chain – particularly US companies like Levi’s, Gap, Walmart and Amazon who have refused to sign the Accord."

Add to this, the UK throws away 360,000 tonnes of clothes annually and it made sense for our family to try to be a bit more ethical within our budget. It hasn’t always been possible.

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When I recently emerged from my two months of being mostly bed-bound and on high dose steroids, I’d put on two dress sizes and weight in such unusual places that, with some eyelash extensions, I could definitely pass for a Moomin. Though my husband sweetly and dishonestly reassured me I looked like a, ‘Sexy Moomin’.

When I was finally ready to get out of the pyjamas and meet the real world again I found that none of my clothes fitted.

In that instance, I went directly to Silverburn in a threadbare pair of maternity leggings and bought myself enough clothes so that I didn't have to ‘Donald Duck’ my way through my professional engagements for the next few months.

But I did have the benefit of using the Fashion Checker website which rates high street shops for supply chain transparency, living wage and public commitment to ethical production among other criteria.

Charity shop shopping (Image: free)

I do also understand that deciding, and the very fact of that choice, is a privilege in itself.

First of all, it suggests that your body is a shape that is recognised by most clothes manufacturers which, in my recent experience, means lower than a size 18 despite the average UK woman being a size 16.

After this point women’s clothes are mostly stretched Jersey tents or a strange satin pleat that makes the wearer look like a fleshy accordion.

Added is the fact it’s time-intensive to shop this way. You need a lot of time on your hands to scroll apps like eBay, Vinted or Depop or wandering around charity and vintage shops looking for bargains.

Finally, it’s often not that much more thrifty than nipping into the sales at Primark or H&M.

This was surprising to me, having grown up wearing secondhand clothes because we were too poor for new, sharpening my elbows at those jumble sales and dying with shame if my schoolmates ever saw me being dragged into Save the Children with my mum.

But, in fact, once you add in postage and a certain amount of buying in error because it doesn’t fit and you can’t return it, secondhand can end up being as expensive if not more expensive as a high street haul.

With all these caveats I'll see this experimental year as fairly successful.

Initially this was fairly easy in Prague, where we were living by an excellent vintage shop with a monthly sale where everything in the shop was reduced to 50 Czech crowns so around £1.90 and I’d go and buy beautiful, interesting Soviet era clothes.

Likewise, any parent will tell you that there is a roaring market for used kids clothes simply because they simply grow so fast.

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Now we’re in Glasgow I buy in bundles and once my toddler, growing so fast now they could get served in our local pub with the aid of a fake moustache, has grown out of them, I hand these into Glasgow social enterprises like Kinder Handl or Merry-Go-Round where I buy the next size up.

My husband, who is lucky enough to be so rangy that he's never had to worry about what he's putting over that handsome frame, has developed a love for a specific brand of highly flammable 80s jumpers, ‘SweaterGraphix’, and lumberjack shirts and feels he's finally found his look at 44.

In short, as with many things as a family, we’re doing our best. Sometimes there’s no time, or budget or the energy to shop consciously but when you can your clothes will just feel better on you.

Of course, the most essential thing is to make sure companies are held accountable. As consumers, we can try our best to make ethical decisions but ultimately, systemic structural change needs to be made in the cycle of manufacturing, to make it more sustainable and ethical. That involves pushing for transparency from companies, being aware of their practices and voting with our pockets.

The next step for us arrives in the shape of a bulky old sewing machine bought for a song on eBay.

I wouldn't dream of inflicting my sack creations on my little boy or my husband but I think my Moomin silhouette will look OK with a brightly coloured sack. My personal sustainable fashion. It's not perfect, nothing is.

As Kermit said, it’s not easy being green (or ethical) but we’re doing our best and are committed to another year of rummaging through the virtual jumble sale tabletops.

Clean clothes campaign - https://cleanclothes.org/ Fashion Checker - https://fashionchecker.org/ Good on You - https://goodonyou.eco/the-impact-of-a-living-wage-for-garment-workers/ IndustriAll - https://www.industriall-union.org/more-brands-must-sign-the-accord-say-global-unions-on-10th-anniversary-of-rana-plaza-disaster