Neil Boorman tried the impossible: to live a brand-free existence. Disposing of everything from the TV to toilet paper and starting a life without logos hasn't been easy, but it's taught him a lot about consumerism, he tells Louise East
Deciding where to meet Neil Boorman is not easy. A Starbucks is definitely out. A hotel lobby is a possibility, but any hotel large enough to have a lobby is usually part of a multinational chain. An independent coffee shop? Still no guarantee he'll be able to consume anything it offers. In the end I opt for the cafe attached to a small organic supermarket and breathe a sigh of relief when he orders a pot of tea, no questions asked. Late last year Boorman burned every one of his branded goods; Lacoste T-shirts, Louis Vuitton satchels, a BlackBerry phone, a Sharp LCD television and even a Dyson went into the flames. Since then he has attempted to live without brands, shopping in markets and army surplus stores, making his own toothpaste and fending off endless questions about why he did it and, more relevantly, whether it's possible to live without brands.
"I knew it was virtually impossible, but in a way I did it partially to prove that point. Brands are supposed to offer choice, and they do: choice between products. The one choice that isn't really available to us is to live a brand-free lifestyle."
Loo roll, for example. In order to avoid buying a branded product, Boorman was forced to buy in bulk from a janitorial supplier and ended up with the kind of shiny, crackly paper best used for deconstructionist origami. As a journalist and author he still had to write, but how to do so without a branded computer? Boorman paid a company several hundred pounds to customise his laptop and remove its logos.
"I did start to get a little out of control," he says. "I was completely obsessed by brands beforehand. They occupied my thoughts all the time. So, surprise surprise, after the bonfire I was living this crazy, self-regulated lifestyle - and I was being just as obsessive."
Ironically, it is Boorman's self-confessed addiction to brands that makes his project more interesting than that of a committed environmentalist turning one shade greener. As the editor of Sleazenation, a cooler-than-thou lifestyle magazine, and founder of Shoreditch Twat, a fanzine that created, as well as documented, edgy east London culture, Boorman lived and breathed labels. "I remember going out and buying a pair of Gucci flip-flops. I mean, I'm not minted. I was getting into debt and yet I spent all my money on a pair of £200 [ €300] Gucci flip-flops. Part of it was because of the ridiculousness of spending £200 on a pair of flip-flops. Part of it was me showing my dedication to the core of this lifestyle, that I would go that extra mile to have that stuff."
As a follower of fashion Boorman was also a keen reader of the signals given out by other people's branded goods: trainers; sunglasses; haircuts; even what department store bag they chose to carry their gym gear in.
"We all do it to a certain extent. The things that we buy indicate what kind of lifestyles we enjoy, and our lifestyles indicate what kind of people we are. Naturally, we look for those things to work out whether that person is someone I could be friends with or have a relationship with or have sex with. If someone asked me I'd have to be honest and say I probably did pass up a few relationships, platonic or otherwise, on the basis of bad shoes."
Boorman is the first to admit how shallow all this is, and it would be easy to dismiss him and his book as a misery memoir by a lucky sod whose misery consisted of too many designer labels, were it not for the iron grip of branding on all our lives. On average we are exposed to 3,000 advertisements every day, according to Boorman. As someone pointed out to him, if each ad was a religious quote, we'd be quick to call it a fundamentalist theocracy. "We are living in this incredibly invasive, manipulative brand culture."
Boorman spent hours in the British Library, reading everything he could lay his hands on about the birth of brand marketing. Most interesting, perhaps, was the discovery that many marketing techniques common today - cars as symbols of sexuality, product placement in films, scientific reports paid for by advertisers - were the brainchild of a nephew of Sigmund Freud named Edward Bernays, who put his uncle's ideas to good use for clients such as American Tobacco, General Electric and Dodge Motors.
"If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind," Bernays wrote in 1928, "is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it?"
There was no one moment when the scales fell from Boorman's eyes, more a gradual realisation that, although he'd been an obedient consumer for years, he was no closer to being happy.
"When I saw adverts I did think, boy, if I buy those Prada sunglasses, perhaps I'll be more attractive and successful. I expected those things to come true, and because I'm quite gullible I kept on believing. But after 20 years of buying into those dreams, eventually I did start to think, well, why are those things not happening? Far from being much happier than I was, I was much more miserable . . . You could say that I'm just particularly gullible, but if that's the case, then why is the UK advertising industry worth £19 billion [ €28 billion]?"
Boorman's project was not universally acclaimed. Offers of magazine and marketing work quickly dried up, and he is now living off the proceeds from the book, which has already been sold to eight countries. His partner was endlessly supportive - and allowed the TV, sound system and Dyson to go under the sledgehammer - but kept a secret stash of Andrex.
The strongest and most virulent reaction was on the internet (where Boorman was keeping a blog), and it centred on his plan to destroy all his branded belongings.
"People said it should have been given to charity, it's just a massive waste, a pollution. I understand that, but in the grand scheme of things it's a drop in the ocean compared to the things we throw away every day. I'd hazard a guess that although people initially took issue because of the waste, the real problem was me challenging a massive value underlying British culture, that of consuming."
The other, more considered, criticism of Boorman was that in documenting his experiment in a book, for which he would do publicity interviews, he was, in effect, making himself into a brand.
"It's true. I've got a product to sell. There's no getting away from that," he says. "But it's not a book that's trying to take advantage of people; it's a book that's trying to transform people's lives for the better."
Boorman has now relaxed several of his self- imposed regulations - he's back buying branded toothpaste and proper loo roll - but still steers clear of what he calls status-symbol brands. He is dressed head to toe in black and white, courtesy of markets and second-hand shops, and he looks, despite himself, pretty damn cool. What started as an addiction to brands and turned into an obsession with nonbranding has become a heartfelt belief that we, as humans, need to buy less.
"There are two messages running in completely different directions. One is the advertisers' message, which is consume more. The other, from scientists and environmentalists, is consume less. At some point the two are going to have to meet . . . The language and the manipulative behaviours of advertising need to be toned down and legislated against in the same way that the advertising of alcohol and cigarettes has been. I'd like to be instrumental in making that happen."
All this has taken on a more personal note since the birth of his son, Dexter, earlier this year. "My son is too young to ask for it yet, but when he starts asking about Nike trainers, what do I say to him? I'm going to explain as clearly as I can to a five-year-old the reason why he's not going to get that stuff . . . I don't know whether I'm actually any happier now, but I think I'm more content."
Bonfire of the Brands by Neil Boorman is published by Canongate, £12.99 in UK