Must Stop Overconsumption
Hi friends,
You may remember my new years resolution to purchase only 12 items of clothing this year - one per month. Well, that’s in the shitter. Something about the warmer months and travel makes me itch to purchase new things to redefine or further refine my identity. And buying secondhand makes me feel like it’s really not thatttt bad to overconsume. I had a bit of a spending spree in chicago this summer including a gingham bodysuit, a black and blue plaid dress, a couple belts, a camo tshirt, 2 vintage scarves, and a $4 pair of butter soft denim. While the new-to-me jeans have brought me a lot of joy in recent days (they are low waisted and I’m really enjoying that new silhouette on myself!), I do feel a bit guilty about the purchase which I made on a whim and not to fill a gap in my wardrobe. At my core, I know I’m not a minimalist. However, I AM easily overwhelmed by stuff and like my closet most when I’m rotating through a few go to outfits or items I’m obsessed with.
I downloaded the closet organization app Indyx after seeing some of my favorite fashion youtubers talk about it. I’m hoping that Indyxing my closet will help me feel more creative and content with the pieces I have and that seeing everything digitally cataloged will prevent some pieces from being forgotten and double purchased (oops). I also feel like using an app to track what I’m wearing everyday is giving me a better understanding of my actual style, rather than the pinterest version that lives in my head.
I feel conflicted about the desire to constantly beautify ourselves through new clothing, accessories, makeup, skincare, and beauty gadgets. On one hand, its fun! It’s kind of a hobby? On the other, it’s a never ending pressure requiring outlandish consumption patterns to maintain an ever fleeting beauty baseline.
I recently saw a tik tok of a girl who got rid of her 10 step korean skincare routine and started using only drugstore gentle cleanser, vanicream (similar to cerave), and castor oil. Her skin looked like glass and made me feel like maybe my cabinet full of toner pads, chemical exfoliants, moisturizers, oils, and face masks is an elaborate, unnecessary, and imagined trap I’ve laid for myself.
All this with a $600 Theraface red light therapy mask on my birthday wishlist and a Japanese shower head filter currently out for delivery….
Feeling hypocritical, confused, and very truly yours,
Sydney
Dear Sydney,
It’s no secret I like being a consumer. I like gadgets, clothes, makeup, little cups for my tea, etc.,
I think we can trace it back to the rise of youtube and the OG influencers. I was addicted to watching PR hauls where glamorous, glowy skinned divas unboxed neutral eyeshadow palette after neutral eyeshadow palette and shrieked about how its “soooooo pigmented”. I still find myself in the bright lights of Sephora scoping out the newest releases – never mind the fact that I’ve had my makeup routine down pat for the past two years. I’m thrilled each time I purchase a new pair of shoes. Thank God summer is almost over because I’ll finally stave off buying this really cute pair of Jimmy Choo raffia flats that call to me everytime I wander into Neiman’s.
The idea of this Indyx app has intrigued me. When I make my move and have to transport all my clothes, maybe I’ll give it a try. Everyday feels like one step closer to Cher Horowitz’s closet automater. One thing that really curbed my shopping itch was the nuuly. It fulfilled my desire to have fresh work outfits every month without the expense of a biweekly Zara trip.
I’m also coming to grips with the fact that wanting to be beautiful is a very expensive trap to fall into. Earlier this year I was seduced by gel-x nails. With the promise that they wouldn’t damage my (naturally lovely) nailbeds and a rainbow of color literally at my fingertips: I began a 6 month cycle of getting my nails done every four weeks. And of course I got a design. And of course chrome finish is +20. The whole set would ring up around 120 each time. 6*120=720.
Seven hundred and twenty dollars. I could have put that towards a couch!! And I don’t even like the experience of going to the salon, I get too antsy! And they DO damage your nails!
All that to say I have returned to the much more economical at home gel mani. It’s kind of nice, it forces me to slow down and make time to take care of myself. Like most things I do though, I don’t like that I’m naturally not as good at it as the nail tech of 20 years I’d been seeing. I think I’ll stick with it, after all, practice makes perfect! Imagine if I’d started my DIY nail tech journey in high school, I’d be so gifted by now!
An avid consumer trying to save money & very truly yours,
Julianne
P.s. Did you know that you can buy nail chrome on amazon for three dollars? Three!! Salons you will pay for what you have done.
Dear girls,
I thought that once I got a job I could enjoy the pleasures of indulging in expensive purchases but as the impending doom of the cost of planning a wedding has been thrown at me, I now realize I must grind like never before. Now I truly fear my impulsive shopping habits that have lived unchecked for the past few months.
But I did move in with the antithesis to overconsumption as I live with a man who is too afraid to spend money on groceries for the week, let alone a new pair of shorts to work out in, even though all of his have holes in them and he works out everyday. So I think subconsciously he has helped to slow me down on my spending.
While I do like to add clothes to my collection regularly, I do feel I have done a better job of adding clothes that I will actually wear on a consistent basis, thanks to sticking to my color season, deep winter, and by researching clothes that would look flattering on my body type. Like for instance, I used to try to wear bodycon dresses because I would think “I’m thin this will have to look good on me” but really I need the dress to be looser, or have an asymmetrical element. I also really try to wear everything in my closet as much as possible. I do this by actively choosing to put together an outfit everyday. Of course some days I flop, but I do try to do something daily.
Sydney I can’t wait to try Indyx! I think this app could be really fun to try and honestly save time in the long run when I am trying to plan my outfits for things.
And now that I live in my own house, I really try to clear things out every month. I do not want my home to ever turn into piles of things we just don’t need. I want to keep the clutter to a minimal, and have objects in our home that just feel nice. Again I found that the thing that helps the most is researching styles, putting together a mood board or an imagery plan of the things we want to buy/have in our home. I think this can also translate to clothes as well, even though that is much harder for me.
Even beyond the typical overconsumption thoughts of clothing, or random gadgets, something that haunts me is not each of the groceries we buy, or the plastic shampoo bottles we have or other random household goods that are seen as necessities but really add up over the years to just being wasteful. Over-consuming almost just seems impossible to avoid in this day and age.
But we should always try to be mindful of our purchases!
Yours,
Grace
Happy Sunday girls,
A bit ironic that I am starting to write this letter on the way to meet Claire to help them shop for a new wardrobe. However as someone who never shops and hasn’t bought new clothes in like, years, I fear Claire was long overdue for a closet overhaul. I come prepped with a Pinterest board for inspiration.
Claire has the opposite problem from me. I have, as we all know, FAR too many clothes, and so many of them are either casual thrift finds that are not that nice, or extremely niche pieces I haven’t worn for literally two years but every time I go to clean out my closet I imagine the hyper-specific event that will probably never happen but that the outfit would be perfect for so I can’t bear to part with it.
I feel like I straddle the line between caring about the amount I consume and not caring at all. Everyone says I am a good saver, and it’s true I almost never buy “new” clothes and other trending items, but if you take a look at my room you can definitely see how things have piled up. Sometimes I feel sick at how much stuff I have and how unnecessary it all is, and other times I feel at ease with the fact that I love clothes and thrifting and that’s just a way that I express myself. Maybe nuuly would help me, but I am also a chronic in-store shopper- and hate buying things online because I know myself and I do not have the will to make online returns. I just won’t do it, and that’s called knowing thy self.
What I really need is someone to Marie kondo me and tell me what pieces I just need to get over and let go of. However- the thing I fear lately is a sense of my own personal style disappearing. I feel like the things I used to enjoy wearing are becoming more obsolete in my day to day, and I am favoring more basic outfits and battling the desire to buy into tiktok outfits trends more frequently. Is this because my frontal lobe is finishing cooking and my style is developing as I age? Or is it just that I am being influenced so heavily I can’t tell what I actually like anymore??
Very truly yours,
Avery
GUYS HELP I need to be stoned bc after I wrote this I bought two shirts, a pair of linen pants, and some tailored shorts while shopping with claire. Did I NEED them? No 😔. But I wanted them and also the sales associate was so nice and helpful I needed to affirm her 😊
Dear Sydney, Julianne, Grace and Avery,
As my move to a new apartment approaches in t-minus two weeks, I have been thinking a lot about my consumption habits. As a child, I moved a lot and subsequently developed an aversion to decorating the rooms I have lived in. Now I will have a whole apartment that is mine (and Ben’s), and the thought of having to decorate it is both exciting and nerve-wracking: I am excited to discover what my taste is and afraid to find out it is bad.
The economic burden of having to furnish the place is also looming large in my mind. If it weren’t for my boyfriend and his salary, I would still be living out of one room in an apartment crammed with four other people, which is to say, my salary doesn’t exactly support large purchases. It feels strange to be moving in with someone who makes substantially more money than I do, because the shared space necessitates that my bar for what I would/would not buy has also shifted substantially, despite the fact that I literally can’t afford it. If I were on my own, I simply wouldn’t make the purchases to, say, buy a nice couch or coffee table (in my last room, my bed was just a mattress and box spring I got off of facebook marketplace), but now my roommate is also my lover and financier, so the couch is non-negotiable. Being in a relationship has forced me to start living a normal life and shirk the bug-ish one where I considered myself to be just a lodger in strange places. My little rooms were always my separate havens from the outside world and the fact that they were so hodgepodge gave me a good excuse to never allow anyone else to step foot in them, which is a private luxury I will never have again. I don’t know if I am ready for that but I don’t really have a choice because I am also in love.
On the other hand, clothes and books are the two categories that I have an abundance of. My issue is that I like most of the clothing I have. I am not prone to buying pieces that don’t suit me. However, I have so many articles that I simply forget what I own, which means that I only wear what I can directly see in front of me, which makes me feel like my wardrobe is actually smaller than it is, which makes me buy more clothing. It’s a sickening cycle. Now my closet feels redundant and the sheer number of clothes that I own makes me feel claustrophobic.
The other issue is that I am indifferent to most of my clothing. I think another residual effect of moving a lot throughout my life has made me extremely detached from my possessions, so the fact that I could throw almost anything away makes me feel like I probably should. I do have some exceptional pieces of clothing, and my current goal is to start prioritizing second-hand luxury items, which I think will heighten both the look of and my perception of my wardrobe. My biggest style icon is probably Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and she was the queen of a classic, chic and elevated casual style. I am not a loud, trendy dresser, but I want to be stylish. I want to be a vessel that gives life to my clothes when I put them on, not the other way around.
Money, Money, Money from Mama Mia is going around and around and around in my head.
Very truly yours,
Mackenzie
