As a fashion writer and avaricious shopper, I’m more than familiar with all the many ways of saying that you want something for your very own. Yearning, lusting after, got to have it, need – the latter said with a certain earnest nod of the head and your finest ‘and what?’ face.

Yes, as far synonyms for selfish shopping go, I’ve got them all. And I deploy them on a daily basis.

One that I try not to use, however, and one which is all over the place at the moment in magazines and on websites, is ‘covet’. ‘This season’s shoes to covet,’ they say, or ‘a covetable make-up compact.’ But I don’t use it, because I think coveting something is not quite the same as wanting it.

It’s a desperate wanting, usually of something from somebody else, in a sort of heart-tuggingly bitter way. It’s not a nice sort of wanting, either to feel or be the object of. It’s a bit grubby and dissatisfied. And God told us not to do it.

Fashion is about aspiration and inspiration. It’s about the new and its ineluctable lure. It’s about creating yourself in a certain image, and it’s about want, almost certainly. Which is something we all feel rather coy about saying.

That’s understandable. We’re taught, as decent human beings, not to put ourselves first. And submitting to our own wants and yearning and gotta-have-it-ness isn’t one of the most selfless actions on the sweeping moral scale that others so quickly queue up to judge us on. But it is one of the most honest.

Coveting isn’t, though. It’s a private shame or a public show. It’s the solitary articulation to yourself that you aren’t good enough without such-and-such a bag or so-and-so’s new dress. Or it’s the dry and desolate accumulation of Stuff, simply because you think it’ll make you happy. And, invariably, it doesn’t.

To some extent, the fashion industry thrives on the sweaty little heartbeat of covetousness. It works by persuading we want things we don’t need. Need as a concept is out of the window when it comes to fashion – some purse their lips in disapproval at that, but I say to them ‘fridge mountain’. At least fashion is recyclable.

I have known what it’s like to covet – I think we all probably have. At school, I wanted Leonora’s Angelina Ballerina hairband so much I was nearly sick. In sixth form I pestered my mum for some Puma trainers like the girl at the bus-stop to the point of monomania, and was bored of them a month after she gave in. Coveting takes all the joy out of fashion and your everyday reinvention.

The internet is a vast resource for anybody interested in trends, aesthetics and subcultures. It’s the ultimate moodboard and soundboard for your own inspirations. Thanks to the internet you can want more things than ever before, you can yearn for them – and mostly get your hands on them. That means there’s plenty to go round, without anyone needing to covet anything.

But the web also breeds in its culture of street style one-upmanship a mood that can be nebulously described as covetous. And that isn’t a good thing.

The bigger hat, the brighter hair, the more make-up, the slogans a camera lens could read from outer space. All this smacks of what you can sum up in the word ‘covet’: a slavish need to be noticed, and a dissatisfaction when you aren’t.

That’s the problem with coveting something that belongs to someone else. It never looks quite as good or feels quite right on you. That’s why, when you want, lust after, gotta have or even (use this one sparingly, mind) ‘need’ something, you should do it on your own terms. And, as a fashion writer and all-round enjoyer of clothes and new things, ‘covet’ isn’t one of mine.