Sometimes there was genuine temptation, but more often the urge to buy new clothes came at moments of panic and despair

There are many excellent reasons to stop buying clothes – ethical, environmental, anti-consumerist, self-abnegatory – but it was necessity that got me in the end. Our decrepit fridge was shorting out the boiler circuit twice a month and a 12-month fashion fast seemed a clean means of marshalling funds.

Early last January, I made a proclamation in the town square, or the contemporary equivalent (a Facebook status update), hoping that the threat of collective disapproval might help keep me in check. The only “out” I gave myself was hosiery: no amount of lipstick and shiny hair can distract from balding tights or festering socks.

“Not shopping” is no longer a matter of physically avoiding shops (though that helps). These days, you can blow the funds destined for next month’s utility bills on a frock after three glasses of Gran Cerdo and as many clicks of a mouse. Purchases that got away flirt with you knowingly from search engine sidebars. I diligently unsubscribed from tempting newsletters, severed bonds with websites that lure with special offers and exclusive discounts, and sloughed off the mailing lists for private sales that flatter with the suggestion of privileged access.

Every garment on the rail was laundered, darned and ironed until they licked the skin with the crisp luxury of just-changed sheets. I re-auditioned impulse purchases, wearing an awkward skirt sideways and an overly conceptual sweater inside out. I became skilled at layering to conceal holes.

I often experienced some gulf between expectation and reality when dressing

Even then, the yen to buy would occasionally hit. Sometimes there was genuine temptation, but more often the urge to comfort myself with new clothes came at moments of panic and even despair.

Like the disparity between the image on a lasagne packet and the pale, flaccid reality slumped in the plastic tray within, I often experienced some gulf between expectation and reality when dressing. Overall, an outfit would lack the anticipated sass. And, taken individually, the garments themselves don’t sit right: the legs not quite long enough; the thighs of incorrect amplitude; the saddlebags overstuffed. The main problem with my clothes, in other words, is that they are being worn by a woman in her 40s. Far easier, though, to blame the clothes and buy replacements than to deal with the more difficult challenge of coming to terms with the woman in the mirror.

Along the way, there have been unexpected challenges. A new dog brought with her months of frantic 5am wakings in the freezing cold that saw me dressed like a nonagenarian hermit. She has since eaten two pairs of evening shoes and, as if to drive her disapproval home, vomited up the remains.

Waves of moth attack left precious garments unexpectedly friable. About an hour into wearing, sweater sleeves would pulverise like an ancient corpse in an Indiana Jones movie.

The difference between things required and things wanted has been keenly felt. Aching knees told me that I really needed proper walking boots. The closest I could achieve were hand-me-up sneakers from my 14-year-old son, for which I am pathetically grateful. And what I wouldn’t have given to replace my lost sunglasses while driving through La Mancha in August. Twelve months are up, and I’ve stuck with it. But I still haven’t replaced that decrepit fridge.