Emma Cowing: Sweet little lies are cheap at £2bn, dear

Her “man’s” face when confronted with the monstrosity was an agonised mixture of terror, resignation and quite possibly temporary colour blindness. He looked like he’d rather be undergoing intensive root canal treatment than standing in a women’s clothing department on a Sunday afternoon, agreeing that the dress was “nice”. Which is, of course, exactly what he did.

I thought about that dress the other day when I read that women waste £2 billion a year on clothes that don’t fit or suit them, often because their partner hasn’t the heart to criticise them. Does it sit in a wardrobe somewhere, that hideous far-too-orange dress, unloved and unworn, softly humming Memory from Cats and wondering where it all went wrong? Or has it been dispensed with and given to a charity shop, thus kick-starting the whole traumatic “does this look nice” process for some poor unsuspecting couple all over again?

It is not, of course, a surprise that women waste money on clothes they don’t like. Even for those women, like me, who would rather spend an hour discussing the finer points of formative epistemology with Frankie Cocozza than take a man of any description on a shopping trip, changing rooms are little short of dangerous minefields these days. A little black dress that looks elegant and smart under the flatteringly dim cubicle bulb has only to be exposed to a chink of post-purchase daylight in order to reveal itself as bulgy, too short and navy blue.

But throw in a man, and – as I find so often is the case – things get even more complicated. The study into shopping habits, conducted by online clothing firm very.co.uk, revealed some very interesting results. Most men apparently admitted that it was far easier to lie than to serve their partners some warmed-up version of “yes dear, your bum does look too big in that”. One in ten went so far as to say that they thought it would ruin their partner’s weekend, while a fifth suspected that any negative comment would be wheeled out and used against them at a later date. And a whopping quarter of men admitted they had lied so they wouldn’t have to (oh, the inhumanity) continue shopping.

Julie Donnelly, a spokeswoman for the firm said: “The ‘does my bum look big in this’ question can be a tricky one for British men, particularly when it’s put to them just outside a busy changing room in a department store.”

I know at least one Glaswegian gentleman who would agree.

But women, it seems, should be appalled at this. What is the point in a relationship, after all, if one can’t be honest? Indeed, the survey results bore this out, with a whopping 82 per cent of women saying they would rather know the truth about their outfit before skipping off to the checkout.

There is a line in an episode of Gavin and Stacey when Mick, Gavin’s father, passes on some advice to his soon-to-be-married son. “Listen,” he tells him. “I lie to your mother on average seven times a day.” The joke is that they have one of the strongest relationships on TV.

Of course relationships need to be founded on honesty and truth, but lies are an essential part of that foundation, not least because sometimes, lies can be kinder than the truth.

Now there is no getting away from the fact that £2bn is a lot of money to waste on clothes that you’ll never wear. You could probably open a couple of schools with two billion quid, or a few hospitals. Except that the schools would be empty, because so many couples would have fallen out there would be no more children, while the hospitals would be overflowing with mind-boggling coat hanger casualties.

That £2bn, which could probably go some way to repaying the national debt, is instead being used to keep couples together, to reinforce relationships, and convince women that their “man” thinks they look wonderful no matter what they wear, or how they wear it. Call me old-fashioned, but I reckon it’s worth it.