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Stop Buying So Much Rubbish: How Having Fewer, Better Things Can Make Us Happier

Patrick Grant author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:HarperCollins Publishers

Published:9th May '24

Should be back in stock very soon

This hardback is available in another edition too:

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Stop Buying So Much Rubbish: The Sunday Times Bestselling Book from The Fashion Expert Championing Quality Over Excessive Consumption

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTELLER

‘Utterly brilliant. We all need to read this book’ CLAUDIA WINKLEMAN

'Patrick’s book is fascinating and sobering and makes a compelling argument for going back to basics’ JOE LYCETT

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTELLER

‘Utterly brilliant. We all need to read this book’ CLAUDIA WINKLEMAN

'Patrick’s book is fascinating and sobering and makes a compelling argument for going back to basics’ JOE LYCETT

We used to care a lot about our clothes. We didn’t have many but those we had were important to us. We’d cherish them, repair them and pass them on. And making them provided fulfilling work for millions of skilled people locally.

Today the average person has nearly five times as many clothes as they did just 50 years ago. Last year, 100 billion garments were produced worldwide, most made from oil, 30% of which were not even sold, and the equivalent of one bin lorry full of clothing is dumped in landfill or burned every single second. Our wardrobes are full to bursting with clothes we never wear so why do we keep buying more?

In this passionate and revealing book about loving clothes but despairing of a broken global system Patrick Grant considers the crisis of consumption and quality in fashion, and how we might make ourselves happier by rediscovering the joy of living with fewer, better-quality things.

Weaving in his personal journey through fashion, clothing and the other everyday objects in his life, this is a book that celebrates craftsmanship, making things with care, buying things with thought and valuing everything we own. It explains how rethinking our relationship with clothing could kickstart a thriving new local economy bringing prosperity and hope back to places in our country that have lost out to globalisation, offshore manufacturing and to the madness of price and quantity being the only things that matter.

'Presents a new way of thinking about the things we buy' KEITH BRYMER-JONES

‘Patrick Grant’s new book is a convincing call to end our complacency’

FINANCIAL TIMES

'Celebrates craftsmanship, making things with care, and how having fewer, better-quality things can make us happier'

GUARDIAN

‘A deep dive into our relationship with consumerism, the toxic effects of fast fashion and the demise of British industry.’

DAILY TELEGRAPH

'A call to arms to stop buying so much rubbish’

DAILY MIRROR

‘An important and serious book’

RADIO TIMES

‘Something of a manifesto’

THE HERALD

‘A manifesto on how we should consume now’

DAILY TELEGRAPH

'This book is bloody brilliant'

RUSSELL KANE

ISBN: 9780008664008

Dimensions: 240mm x 159mm x 35mm

Weight: 620g

368 pages