Snapshot from the Chanel store in Ala Moana, Honolulu
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about my consumption habits, especially due to my shopping ban resolution this year (and my failure of keeping said ban). To be honest I haven't always been so fashion/style-minded (remember that story about wearing the same jeans and sweaters all throughout grad school). But my consumption habits have really sky-rocketed since starting this blog. At first I felt like I had to consume to have something to blog about. If I wasn't writing about something useful, some kind of new information, why would people even stop by to visit? But last year, it really morphed into its own beast. I was getting boxes almost on the daily. And here I am trying to espouse conscious consumption, minimalism, and intentional buying. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead I was buying all these new items "for the blog" but not really using them. And even if I am purchasing the bulk of my items from companies that care about their workers and the quality of their items, there's just no way one person could effectively wear every single item I was purchasing. And on top of that I had my "uniform" so I wasn't even wearing over half of my "blogger clothes". All of this is starting to feel more disingenuous to who I am and what I believe in (which really is buy less, buy quality, and use well). I don't know what the solution here is, except to slow my roll (which is what I keep repeating, I know). The ban has helped on that some. On the bright side, I feel like I'm getting to know my style better so I really hope that after distilling my current style this year, I'll only be adding things periodically to keep it evolving. But sometimes I wonder if I'll ever break out of this crazy consumption cycle?
P.S. Thank you to everyone who commented with encouragement and with super helpful tips on my "Failure in Feb" post. I feel more determined than ever to make this shopping ban work. Also thanks to you guys I'm going to be committing to doing a capsule wardrobe (which is what I should have been doing ever since I moved into an Airstream) so stay tuned for that!