You can tell a civilisation is in decline by the shrinking size of the men's department in charity shops. Not the economy. Not politics. Not even the disappearance of proper bank branches. The real sign is walking into a charity shop and discovering that the entire male section now occupies roughly the same floor area as a modest airing cupboard.
Women's clothes still dominate the premises, obviously. Rails everywhere. Dresses. Shoes. Handbags the size of emergency lifeboats. Strange floaty garments that seem to require their own engineering standards. Half the shop looks like somebody's exploded wardrobe after a difficult divorce in Cheltenham.
Then, somewhere near the back, usually beside a shelf containing three golf annuals from 1987 and a breadmaker without a paddle, sits "Menswear". All of it. Two rails and half a shelf. One rail for shirts nobody wanted even when they were new, and another for fleeces with embroidered logos from agricultural suppliers, regional plumbing firms and IT consultancies that collapsed during the Blair years.
Which is ironic, because most of the men's clothes in charity shops didn't arrive there through male initiative in the first place. Men rarely stand in front of a wardrobe thinking, "I shall now donate these garments for the benefit of the community." No. Men's clothes leave the house because wives quietly decide the process has begun.
A bloke will come downstairs wearing a perfectly serviceable fleece he's owned since the Cameron years and hear the fatal sentence:
"You're not still wearing that, are you?"
That's it. The decision has been made. A week later the fleece disappears into a black sack despite still having at least another decade of useful life left in it. The husband searches mildly for a few days, asks once whether anyone's seen his blue fleece, then eventually starts wearing an even older one from the garage instead.
Women donate clothes aspirationally. Men donate clothes accidentally. Which may also explain why the menswear department keeps shrinking despite this constant stream of surrendered garments. Women's clothes often arrive at charity shops because somebody's reinventing themselves. "I've gone off linen." "I don't really wear this colour now." "It doesn't suit who I am anymore."
Men's clothes leave circulation only after complete mechanical exhaustion.
A man's jumper doesn't become donation-ready until it's survived DIY, oil changes, decorating, several garden projects and at least one encounter with expanding foam. By the time his wife finally drags it towards the charity sack, the elbows are translucent, one cuff has gone strangely rigid and the whole thing smells faintly of petrol, damp shed and quiet resistance.
So perhaps the mystery isn't why the men's section is small. Perhaps most male clothing simply never makes it onto the rails because the sorting volunteers take one look and quietly redirect it into the rag bag.
"Another polo shirt, Margaret."
"Good Lord. Look at the collar."
"Workshop cloths."
Mind you, I once went into my local charity shop and spotted a polo shirt that had mysteriously vanished from my own wardrobe several months earlier. There it was, hanging on the rail for £3.50, looking slightly confused but otherwise perfectly healthy. I recognised it immediately. Tiny paint spot near the hem. Slight fade on the collar. Mine.
So I bought it.
Which means I effectively paid to recover my own property after it had completed some sort of unauthorised domestic recycling loop. I can only assume the volunteers thought I was very keen on Next polo shirts. I didn't explain. It felt awkward.
I brought it home wearing an expression of quiet triumph, like a man who's recovered stolen artwork.
Hay looked at it for about two seconds and said, "Oh God, not that thing again."
Which rather confirmed my theory that men's clothes are not donated because they're worn out. They're donated because somewhere, eventually, a woman reaches a limit.
That would also explain the strange survivors still hanging in the men's department. Untouched funeral shirts. Waterproof jackets bought for one wet holiday in Wales. Golf jumpers belonging to men called Keith. Trousers with creases sharp enough to slice ham.
The sizing doesn't help either. Charity shops appear to believe men come only in Small or Recently Deceased Enormous. You hold up a jacket labelled Medium and it would comfortably fit a child trumpet player. Then beside it hangs a XXXL blazer capable of covering a Mondeo and half the driveway.
Meanwhile the women's section stretches off into the distance like a textile-based nature reserve. Men get one wire basket labelled "Belts", usually containing three cracked fake leather specimens and something woven that no human being has voluntarily worn since 2004.
Still, we browse them. Hope springs eternal. Every now and then you find treasure. A proper Barbour. A Harris Tweed jacket. An almost new pair of Loakes that clearly belonged to a man who died before he'd fully worn them in. That possibility keeps you going through the endless polyester disappointment.
Then you leave having bought none of those things, but somehow carrying a chipped mug, a hardback biography of Montgomery, a sandwich toaster missing one plate, and apparently your own polo shirt.
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