In his pursuit of earning as much money as he possibly can by doing as mediocre a task as he possibly can across as many areas of work as possible, my son, Callum, has turned his hand (kind of) to ironing.
More particularly he’s turned his hand to ironing my clothes because I leave my share of my ironing until the very last minute and until I’m ironing a T-shirt as I need it (as I used to do when we washed the dishes in my student flat “need a dish, wash a dish”).
And so, on his first outing into the world of professional ironing, Callum took the big basket downstairs and into the living room and set-up the iron and initially started to count out what was required (scope of project).
Being a nearly 15-year-old teenager, he thinks his parents are completely stupid, he thought he could scam us out of money for ironing because, to be honest, “how difficult can it possibly be?”.
And so, on investigating the basket and the scope of the project he realised there were 23 t-shirts (twenty-three!) and 5 shirts and some jeans.
He quickly realised that his negotiated value for the ironing was somewhat underdone (obviously a deliberate part of the process on my part to get him to begin to understand how these things work).
So, there was much complaining together with much ironing but to be fair he did a pretty good job and managed to get through the whole lot, much to my satisfaction because I was quite happy to pay the money to not ever have to iron them and now, I have a wardrobe full of t-shirts that will not have to be revisited again for at least a month.
But the point of this is 23 t-shirts.
There’s no question that I have a bit of a t-shirt habit in the same way that I have a little bit of sunglasses habit and in the same way that I used to have a bit of a headphones habit.
Decisions upon shopping and how we should and could buy things in a better way but many years ago when the girls and Callum and I were playing a game at one point about ‘what we’d like to do when we grow up’ and when we were building a business park with spare buildings, we talked about the prospect of launching a fashion business.
No honestly, get back on your seat and stop laughing, I was entirely serious about this at least to a point.
The reason for this is that it would be possible to buy fashion in entirely different way and to be fair some people have tried this way before.
While I don’t want to give you all the basics of the business plan that we had (in case you steal it and in case we still do it) it’s centred around sustainable, non-disposable, non-fast fashion.
That is entirely at odds with the current market, which is unsustainable, very fast and certainly completely disposable.
And so, once again back to the 23 t-shirts.
My well-developed t-shirt habit has been running for over a decade and so, my 23 t-shirts that are in my wardrobe are collected at least over that period.
I had my ‘Huub’ phase when I was trying to relive my glory triathlon days (still in that phase a little bit) and my newly started ‘bands that I’ve been to see’ phase which include my recent Frank Turner acquisition.
And so, I don’t wear my t-shirts every day and so, maybe once a month and therefore maybe 12 or 14 times a year and therefore they last a long time, but the point is that the business plan that we were putting together is centred around the never-ending t-shirt.
The never-ending t-shirt would have a reasonable usage policy, but it would definitely only last 5-7 years for average individuals but would be entirely repairable and repairs would be free.
As I think now, it would be on a subscription basis (probably £1 a month) with an initial payment to get into the scheme.
On that basis you would be sent the t-shirt in the same way that I was sent the Cyclon trainers and you could send it back, have it repaired and have it sent back to you again.
So, imagine a modified version of those old leather patches on your elbows of your school blazers (remember those guys for those old enough). Now we throw the blazer away and buy a new one.
But the repairs would not be an embarrassment, they would be a badge of honour.
You would be someone that said, “I’ve had my t-shirt repaired 16 times and I’m now in year 7”.
Of course, this would have to be tied up like some form of a variation of buying skins on Fortnite.
The t-shirts that were available in phase 1 of the launch (the first 6 months perhaps) would never be made again so they would be limited.
The early adopters and innovators who bought those T-shirts would wear them with pride and showcase them to the world and be your sales force.
The branding would be absolutely critical (that’s the bit I’m not telling you because we already have that) and therefore as soon as the celebrities started to wear the t-shirts and talk about them the whole place would go bat sh*t.
It would force Nike and Adidas and Ralph Lauren and all of these guys into a potential sustainable subscription-based t-shirt model and then we would be overrun and overwhelmed, but our work would be done.
We would always be the first so we would at least have some kudos that we would have made a massive difference and had a lot of fun.
Answers on a postcard (in the comments below) to tell me why I haven’t already done this because as I wrote this I’m thinking why not.
We have recently launched the 5th episode of our ‘Nothing but the Tooth’ podcast and for this episode colin was joined by Louis Dunne. Louis is a 19-year-old aspiring triathlete and for anyone who follows this blog, you will understand that Louis has quite a backstory!
If you’re in need of some inspiration click the link here to listen because you’ll definitely find it in this podcast.
Blog Post Number - 3255
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