I never thought I was a person who forms a sentimental attachment to clothes but, a few weeks ago, my husband found me weeping over my empty wardrobe. I had made a radical decision and sold the lot.

Have you ever looked in your wardrobe and hated the sight of every single thing in it? Have you ever wished you could start all over again? When, a year after the birth of my second child, I realised this was something I was doing most days, I decided to take action. And yet, the act of actually doing it churned me up more than I had anticipated. All those memories. All those much-appreciated gifts. A fabric version of my younger self sitting in a sad pile on my bedroom floor. At the age of 33, it was like sorting through 20 years of memories: the Diesel jeans I wore on my first date with my husband because they made my legs look longer; the floral print Temperley dress in which I danced the night away on my 30th birthday; the Diane von Furstenberg cocktail dress that made me feel like a human being when, just a month after the birth of my first child, my best friend got married.

Still, I carried on. Apart from anything else, the wasted money was too much to bear. To my utter horror, I realised that for the thousands of pounds I had spent, over the years, on flimsy bits of pointless nothing from Topshop (rarely worn more than twice), I could have got myself an Alexander McQueen dress to love for life or, better still, a couple of weeks in Mauritius.

But why the epic fashion crisis? In the space of just over three years, my life, my look and my sartorial needs have changed dramatically. I have gone from being employed to being freelance; from the offices of Vogue to being a contributing editor from my spare bedroom in Brixton; from sample sales to jumble sales; from a size 12 to a very heavily pregnant size 16 and back again. Much as I would like to spend my days, as I once did, in an Issa dress and a pair of Prada boots with a four-inch heel, I have to be realistic; Prada and playgrounds just don’t mix. And I don’t want to have to miss the old me every time I get dressed. I don’t want to keep wishing I could still fit into my size 10, waist-hugging Dolce & Gabbana pinstripe jacket when I know I never will.

On the whole, I am very proud of my wardrobe. I’m not a die-hard fashionista, so it isn’t excessive. It fills one fitted cupboard and one chest of drawers in my bedroom. It is made up largely of tasteful stuff, more classic than fashionable. There is a good smattering of designer items and far too much cheap and useless tat for my liking (after this, I’m not sure I’ll be going near the high street ever again). But it’s mine and it’s me and, on the whole, I love it.

That said, I find myself wanting to change it, mainly because I’ve changed. I hadn’t realised how much until I started selling off my younger self. I am a mother now and I am more confident for it. I have spent too many years hiding behind muted colours and safe options. I want to shine, to explore, to be womanly. I want to start investing in a wardrobe that my daughter will one day be proud of (as I am of my mother’s). And she sure as hell isn’t going to be particularly proud of my dowdy Whistles skirts. In a sense, I feel that, over the past few years, I have shed a former skin, become a very different person, and I want my clothes to reflect that.

EBay was, for me, a whole new world – something wondrous and addictive that I had heard about but hadn’t dared try. Now I know why. For weeks, there were several occasions when a trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night ended with me sitting at my desk to check the bids on my clothes. And minutes before the item ends, when the bids start flooding in… it’s up there with a moonlit proposal.

That said, it is administrative hell. Listing the 500-odd items I had was beyond tedious; answering the endless “Does it fluff?” questions from nerdy buyers even more so. And as for the posting… I never want to see the inside of Brixton post office – an unsavoury place at the best of times – again.

But what have I made? Well, the designer items have fetched good money (£101 for the Prada boots, £70 for an Anya Hindmarch handbag, almost £100 each for two Temperley dresses), but the non-designer stuff is pretty disappointing. My beloved Schott leather jacket sold for just £15.05, a Ghost smock top for just £2.21. Most high street buys went for well under the £5 mark. A pair of Diesel jeans, worn about ten times, went for 99p, as did a lace Diane von Furstenberg top (admittedly fraying around the edges), My total, so far, is just over £1,500. Not bad for clothes I hadn’t worn for years, but still not much when you add up their collective worth.

Surprisingly, a Paul Smith cashmere jumper, hardly worn, didn’t get a single bid. When I summon up the energy, I’ll try to relist that and all the other things that didn’t go (either that or lose the will to live and take them to the charity shop). But right now I’m far too busy shopping. I’ve spent £63 of my earnings so far and got two tunic tops, a Forties tea dress and a pair of gold sandals.

I can tell that this whole experience is going to change the way I shop. A post-eBay trip to Selfridges saw me balking at the price of new clothes, and I have made an important decision: to spend good money only on investment pieces. The rest – which will inevitably get covered in yoghurt anyway – can be bought in sales or, yes, on eBay.

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