‘I felt nauseous in Topshop’: why a fashion editor gave up buying new clothes

The truth about mass-produced dresses - that everything is commodified and nothing is sustainable - did for me. I decided that if I really wanted a new dress, it had to be old

It was April 2019. I was seven months pregnant and in Topshop, looking for something large in which to rehome my body.

I was wearing a maternity dress that, if you had seen me pregnant, you would have recognised - a cheap, pleated wraparound in a red floral print that expanded as I expanded. I imagined Issey Miyake, but increasingly looked more like an armchair. It had served me well, but I was determined to buy something, anything, to see me through the next few months.