I’m becoming a glutton for a mail order catalogue

The mail order catalogue is becoming something of a misnomer. Most of the booklets that drop through the door, full of glossy product pictures, no longer contain order forms to complete and return. Rather, they are inviting you to turn on your computer and visit a website, where half the products in the catalogue usually turn out to be unavailable in the size or colour of your choice.

Still, these advertising brochures evidently work. In fact, I find them ever more compelling.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the arrival of an Argos catalogue was a moment of great excitement. My brother and I would pore over its hundreds of pages, imagining the toys we’d be able to play with, marvelling at the enormous stereos and televisions and generally feeling that we were not worthy of the material opportunities that existed in the world. As far as I remember, we never bought anything.

The other thing that would occasionally pop through the letterbox was a clothing catalogue, which was largely uninteresting except that for a boy of 12 or 13, there was a degree of intrigue when it came to the ladies’ underwear section – however sensible the underwear in question might have been.

After I left home, these alluring creations of great advertising minds became a thing of the past. In rented houses after university, sometimes a brochure would arrive, addressed to a previous resident, and would go straight in the recycling. And since I did almost all of my shopping in person, I managed to avoid inadvertently signing up to mailing lists under my own steam.

But in the last few years, as habits have changed, catalogues have begun to arrive again in increasing numbers. An uptick in our internet shopping during the pandemic has had an obvious knock-on consequence; sometimes there will be a series of thuds as a handful of booklets drop onto the doormat, each a siren call to spend big bucks on middle-class wares.

Really, I should do what I did in my twenties, and consign each and every page immediately to be recycled. And yet I find myself often engrossed, wondering how nice it would be to have a full set of Emma Bridgewater mugs, or how smart I would feel in that pleasant tweed jacket from Crew Clothing, or how delightful my child would look in that Boden outfit. I have become a marketeer’s dream.

The ones that particularly get me are the clothing catalogues in which beautiful men and women sit on rocky seashores looking winsome, yet with hint of ruggedness. They are plainly not really outdoorsy people, but by God they wear it well. And when I look at them I think how charming it would be if I and my family were on a deserted beach, or artful hillside, dressed in pristine Donegal wool or organic linen, smiling broadly and enjoying the sun (or lighting rig) on our faces. It’s a dream life, and I’m sold.

And yet this is the point at which the marketing bods should look away. Because after sighing deeply at the pretty people having their lovely lives, I generally don’t reach for my wallet. I might occasionally buy something as a gift, or if the kids need new t-shirts and there is a sale on, but in the last two years I can think of only one thing I have bought for myself after seeing it in a catalogue. It is a poor return for the excellent efforts of the advertisers.

Partly this is because I still like to actually see something in the flesh before I buy; and it is also because I hate the faff of returning misfitting items in the post. But I have also started to wonder just how many more things – especially clothes – I am going to need before I die.

I realise this sounds dramatic, but let’s assume that at nearly 43 I might be halfway through my life. And at present I have several items in my wardrobe that I bought in the 1990s. For instance, my outfit for any indoor sporting activity is, underwear aside, exactly what it was in 1998 – and with the possible exception of the exceptionally frayed tracksuit trousers, I’m confident I’ll still be wearing that get up when I’m 50.

So really, with a few patches and repairs here and there, I can probably get through at least the next couple of decades without the need to add any extra jumpers to my chest of drawers, however much the mail order catalogues try to persuade me otherwise.