I myself am attempting to do much the same thing, the difference being that I’m not just obliterating my brands, I’m burning them
— and everything they are attached to. On September 17, you can watch me do it: one of the world’s most heavily branded individuals throwing his Adidas trainers, Trek bike, Technics turntable, Westwood suit and more than 1,000 other items on a roaring fire. When it’s all over, there can be no logos left in my life — just a clean slate for a brand-free lifestyle.

Pretty good publicity stunt to launch a book, eh? The publisher was pleased, I can tell you. Rattle a few cages, get some column inches — if I’m lucky, a stint on Richard & Judy’s book club. It’s got to be a winner. Except this isn’t really a stunt at all; it is an act of catharsis that I’m hoping will cleanse my addiction to brands once and for all. I want to be able to wear whatever I want and not to worry about the signals my clothes give off, to look at another person and not care where they spend their cash.

To be honest, I think it’s going to be a relief. For the past 20 years, I have relied on the Ralph Lauren pony, the half-eaten Apple and myriad other badges of status to prove to myself and all around me that I’m worth something. Call me lazy, but it’s easier to express your hopes and dreams via an embroidered logo on your chest than to articulate who you are/want to be. (I wanna be creative and successful and, er, cool.)

These days, most of us use brands as a means of personal expression and, for the most part, it’s not a bad thing. Someone waves to you as they drive past in the same car; strangers bond via websites devoted to a certain make of phone; teenagers build tribes according to the swooshes or stripes on their shoes. We naturally crave a sense of community and a defined set of beliefs — and the modern brand does just that. Personally, I got sucked in too far.

I’ve had affairs with Vivienne Westwood, Ann Demeulemeester and Jil Sander (the brands, that is, not the women). I conducted these flings in public until I tired of their flaws or caught them with an undesirable other. I would then disown them and pretend we’d never met. I’ve cheated behind Pringle’s back, straying into the arms of Paul Smith. And on the same day I left Nike, I jumped straight into bed with Adidas. For a while, I felt rather cheap, but it had been on the cards for a long time. Nike was stuck in the same old routine and Adidas offered me a way out; well, if there’s one thing you can say for new affairs, it’s that they are never, ever boring.

But when you catch yourself cleaning cattle guards and baling hay in Kim Jones and YSL, alarm bells start to ring. Last year, I holidayed in rural Virginia, doing the odd bit of labour to pay for board. One of the locals joked to me one day: “You city boys, I hear you pay, like, 30 bucks for a pair of jeans.” It was only there, miles away from the urban buzz, the ever-changing zeitgeist and the constant glare of advertising, that I begin to realise that, to many people, my life’s obsession was simply meaningless. In another culture, the Adicolour high tops on my feet are just shoes; the O2 Blackberry in my pocket is just a phone; the Apple iBook is but a glorified typewriter. Sure, they have brands in Virginia, like most places, but when they shop for a pair of jeans, they don’t expect to be transformed into Sienna Miller overnight. There’s a big difference.

Reading this, you might say that I’m a particularly gullible person, easy to persuade and manipulate. I’d prefer the term hypersensitive. In the street, I take in every billboard and hoarding, subconsciously processing the brand messages for some future use. In the pub, I observe every logo on the breast of every shirt, making assumptions and judgments about the people who wear them. Rest assured, the brands you see around me give off signals, too, and I go to extraordinary lengths to make sure that they do; everything’s there for a reason.

For all the fancy clothes and upmarket gadgets, I now realise that it’s going to be the small things I’ll miss the most post-bonfire; the pure white bar of Simple soap that makes me feel clean, the organic Solgar vitamins that make me feel healthy, the Taste the Difference hummus I’m convinced tastes better than the Value alternative. When I buy these expensive treats, I feel better about myself; I deserve them, because I’m worth it. Replacing branded clothes with plain polos and T-shirts is easy once you look hard in local markets and on the net. Harder to replace are essentials like shampoo, to the point where I am currently considering recipes for home-made cosmetics — baking soda and peppermint toothpaste, anyone?

And the branded things I cannot replace? They’ll be gone for good. No more Blackberry, no more Sharp LCD. The only luxury I’m keeping is a de-branded iBook, with the tell-tale apples painstakingly removed. The current trend for wearing brands with the sales tag left on suggests that I’m swimming against the tide here. Or perhaps I’m simply growing old. Either way, the only identity I’ll be projecting is my own; my self-esteem unaided by symbols of worth.

Richer or poorer, the one brand that remains is the real me.

For details of the bonfire, visit www.bonfireofthebrands.blogspot.com. Bonfire of the Brands will be published next year by Canongate

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