Ok hate may be a very strong word. After all, I’ve made fashion into my career. It’s my full-time job and my side hustle. It’s what I studied in college and what I worked at to support myself through college. In that case, maybe I’m just a bit sick of it.
But it’s more the fashion industry and consumerism that I’m sick of. I’m sick of shopping, even though I’m very much influenced into wanting to do it ALL the time. I’m sick of advertisers telling us what we need to buy. I’m sick of brands churning out more and more stuff. But mostly, I’m sick of my own inability to step back and not let all this control me.
Don’t get me wrong – over the last decade I’ve unwound the connection I once had with weekly shopping sprees and monthly hauls. I learned the devastating impacts of the fashion industry and the awful conditions of the factory workers. I took almost a complete step back from fast fashion or buying any new clothing and switched to second hand shopping. But somehow the mindset of wanting and needing to constantly be acquiring new things is still there. And that’s what it is, merely acquiring. Not necessarily wearing and enjoying, but just adding in new pieces to hang in my wardrobe or style up in an occasional YouTube video.
When I’m in that moment where I’ve found something I want to buy, I’m convincing myself that it’s a gap in my wardrobe and it’ll change my life and I’ll feel so good when I wear it and people will think I look great and it’s a totally logical decision. However, most of the time it’s a farce, and once I’ve owned it for a few weeks and realise it’s not that comfortable or practical, it gets left hanging there while I wear all my old reliables that I feel really great in.
You might be thinking, ‘Gemma, if you already realise this, why do you keep doing it?’ and that is a great question. Why do I keep doing it? Why do I keep going around in circles of not wanting to shop and then only wanting to shop and then wanting to declutter but then bringing in more junk and filling up my space once again. Why does fashion have such a hold over me and my shopping habits?
Which leads me to today. Or rather yesterday, June 1st, The beginning of my No Buy June. I think I’ll just have to force myself into a no-buy month, and then maybe another one, and another one if that goes well. I sometimes dream about not shopping for a year and how that would feel. In my head it seems so freeing. But in reality I doubt I could do it. Why? I have more than enough clothes. My style is pretty classic that nothing I own will be out of date if i had to just wear that for one year straight. Nor would it fall apart and need to be replaced. So why do I think not shopping for a year is so hard? Why am I afraid to do it?
I don’t actually have an answer to that, so I’m putting this out to the universe. It;s a full moon tonight, maybe I’ll get some kind of cosmic lunar breakthrough tonight. Who knows.
Anyway, long story short, I’m taking a shopping break in June. And I just watched Little Women so I feel like that’s why I’m writing like I’m Jo March. I’m also going to build my Summer Capsule Wardrobe this weekend, or at least the beginnings of it. I may do one for June and July, and then re-jig it in August and September because who knows what the weather might do over the coming months.
