Bidding buying goodbye

Late last week while looking for a pair of shoes I was going to lend to a friend, I discovered that a pair of Marni platforms I had barely worn had this thin layer of mold around it. Obviously I was not happy, and ran off to tell my mom (a.k.a. the biggest clean freak I know) about my not-so-pleasant surprise. My mom had discovered a leak in my walk-in closet, and a few days later I woke up to see all of my shoes and bags taken out of the closet and spread all over the house to be aired and disinfected.

They were spread all over the house because they wouldn’t fit into my room and bathroom combined. And I have a pretty big bathroom.

Consumerism is a very scary thing.

I never thought of myself as that bad a hoarder as compared to some of my friends, though I will say I have always had quite an addiction to purchasing clothing and shoes. As a college student I never wore the same thing until about four months later, and my Sunday date with my mom would involve a trip to Virra Mall to buy at least three pieces of clothing to use for the next week. 

When I began to earn my own money after college, all of my money went to clothing. Despite being relatively stingy earlier on, I had tons of clothes thanks to the wonders of ukay ukay. My garment hoarding reached an all-time high when I would go on buying trips to Hong Kong for our then store, Store For All Seasons. Obviously when you are paying for things wholesale, you feel less guilty as things cost so much less, and each time I came back from Hong Kong I’d bring home at least 20 pairs of cheap shoes.

After a while I realized that even while I was constantly having garage sales to clear my wardrobe of clothes I was getting sick of, I still had way too much junk. It didn’t help that as I don’t have a permanent flat in London, I would buy a new wardrobe each season, and ship everything home when I would go home — a shopping trip to Primark or even just scoring secondhand clothing on Brick Lane cost a lot less than the overweight charges I would get if I brought my clothes on the plane. 

I decided I was going to set some rules when it came to shopping.   My mom, a firm believer in quality and not quantity, would shake her head at me for buying cheap shoes that would break after a few uses. She would always tell me that if I had added up everything I had spent on cheap shoes and bags, it would be the equivalent of one Louis Vuitton bag I would use forever.   As always, when you become older you realize your mom was right. I developed a strong position against fast fashion and decided to boycott it and made a rule to never shop at high street stores again. I decided I was going to only buy vintage clothing and/or investment pieces — meaning high-end designer clothes and shoes. Vivienne Westwood’s “Buy less, choose well” slogan was to become my new shopping mantra.

For the past 2 years I have been abiding by the shopping rules that I set. Or at least I thought so until I realized that I may have misinterpreted “Buy less, choose well” as “Buy Westwood, choose well.”   Sure, the big price difference has helped me minimize the items I own, but it hasn’t stopped me from still saving my hard-earned cash on clothing. In fact, my new rules have made my habit more costly.   As I stare at the designer clutter all over my room, I am now thinking to myself, do I really need two pairs of the same seditionaries’ boots I can’t walk in? Or the exact same pencil skirt in eight colors? Am I really going to wear those studded Louboutin brogues when I don’t really wear flats when I go out? Don’t even get me started on my hat collection.

My mom would only buy designer labels, but she would wear them until they wore out. I, on the other had, just had a really expensive purchasing habit, and a selection of sky-high heels that I could stand in for a maximum of 20 minutes, hence in almost unworn condition. Adding up the cost of how much all of the things I never get the chance to wear in my head, I realized I could have accumulated a pretty good amount in the bank, or maybe even used it as a down payment for an apartment. I started to think about a local show that aired recently about a girl who saved enough from selling barbecue to pay for a house and lot, while I have been working like crazy for years and have nothing to show for it except for a closet full of Westwood orbs.

It became clear that my new rule was to stop buying things, period. I was going to end this whole consumer nonsense and be happy with the things I already had.   I was going to buy based only on actual need and not greed or just plain want. This was going to be my new commitment.

And yet, about 10 seconds later, I find myself checking the availability of Vivienne’s “I love crap” beaded clutch. I mean, surely this realization merits some kind of reward, or at least a physical thing to remind me of my new motto.  

Obviously much easier said than done.