The year of no more … except

February 1 and I still haven't bought any clothes. Nothing. Not a stitch. Not even in the sales. Not even those things I'm allowing myself to buy (underwear, sports shoes). Not even when I'm sad. And not even when I'm happy.

But yesterday I did buy:

2 Lycksele Lovas
4 Stockholms
2 Sissela
A range of Somnig
A couple of Bandblad
2 Tilkort
A Komplement

And right now,  I'm sitting, writing at my brand new Micke.

I've been to Ikea and while it seems like I bought a lot,  given that ikea stocks over 12 000 products, and that our local , the Tempe store, is the largest Ikea in the southern hemisphere, I think I did quite well.

The whole Ikea layout is designed to suck you in.

From a leaving your kids at the door, to cruising past the cleverly designed mini-rooms with maximum use of space. The one-way flow that takes you past the things you never even knew you needed, the free pencils, the cheaply priced items near the check out, the over sized bags. It's a very cunning plan to ensure that you don't get through without buying everything you came for plus a Klak, Dagstorp and a Knutstorp.

Nothing about the actual purchase speaks to pain that starts when you get out of the store. It's then that you notice that the wheels on your trolley don't point in the right direction to get you safely down the little ramp to the carpark, that your car will fit you, or your stuff but not both and that what looked stylish and simple in the shop is actually made up of 52 small pieces, an alan key and some dowel.

I'd driven to Ikea directly from a auction house that sold mid-century (meaning 50s, 60s and 70s) furniture where, despite being taken with a 1970s desk with a map of the world on the top, a darling 1960s small sofa and a couple of arm chairs, I bought nothing.

Ikea encourages spending by mitigating risk (I can always take it back), immediately gratifying you (I can take it right home), optimising convenience (It will fit right in my car), minimising choice by grouping like products together (don't go to the desk section, go to the small, thin, desk section), and of course by making it all so cheap.

I'm in two minds about Ikea. Their designs are really clever and exceedingly accessible, they don't use suppliers who use child labor. They don't use plastic bags, but they do use 1% of the world's timber supplies. They also have some kind of complex and clever charity-based corporate structure which means they pay very little tax. So, while your little furniture supplier down the road is handing 30% of their profits over to fund our schools and hospitals, Ikea is paying between 1 and 2%.

My real issue, though, is how quickly the purchase that you just 'had to have' becomes junk, and how it's junk you can't take to a second hand store because it doesn't last well and buying a new one is just so cheap.

Which makes me wonder what will be in our second hand shops in the future? because, while that map of the world desk has lasted 45 years, my white, sparkling, just-the-right-size-for-the-space Micke will probably be at the tip in ten.