Last updated 15:55, Wednesday, 04 June 2008

WITH the holiday season approaching it can be an anxious time for those who hate packing.

What to wear, what to buy, how to mix and match, it can be too much for someone faced with a fortnight in the sun.

However, in my family we have a simply solution: we spend hours consulting each other and then borrow everything.

Rather like the wedding tradition of something old, some new etc, my female relatives have summer suit-cases filled with something borrowed from their sister, friend, a lass at work who goes abroad twice a year and a friend of a friend who has a shopping addiction and has lots of glittery flip-flops in carriers hidden from her husband.

In my family it is deemed an insult if you go abroad without first raiding the drawers of your nearest and dearest.

We have one member who owns a lot of dressy cruise wear, and my mother seems to have an array of shoes for every holiday occasion. I own a lot of cheap but tasteful accessories so if anyone needs a necklace to lift an outfit, a bracelet to show off a tan or a glitzy purse for cocktails at dusk, I’m their woman.

All in all, the clothes in my female relatives’ wardrobes have probably done more air miles than Victoria Beckham. And if someone buys a lovely black top in a size 14/16 which knocks half a stone off you, works with trousers and skirts, either night and day, you can guarantee that piece of clothing will be in the cases of at least six family members (regardless of age) between the months of May and October.

In fact it is style suicide to actually wear a fabulous dress or item of jewellery at a family gathering since that particular piece will then be noted and placed on a list entitled: Things to remember to borrow when we are bored with our own gear and resent splashing out for something we can get for nowt.

You only have to say the words: “I wonder if someone has a pair of faux crocodile-skin, three-inch mules to wear for my trip to the Seychelles,’’ and my mother rushes out like Gok Wan to track down the shoes from a woman who lives next door to my auntie.

All in all this system has worked marvellously for decades. We all head off to different places in the globe and no one ever guesses we are wearing frocks that don’t belong to us, necklaces that need to be handed back and a fabulous little shawl that will be flying in another person’s suitcase the following week.

Recycling our clothes in this manner is my family’s answer to off-setting our carbon footprint – and we look damn good on it.