I Stopped Buying New Clothes, and Here Is What I Learned

I grew up believing that the more you buy and acquire, the happier you get, especially when it comes to fashion. I grew up thinking that a successful life meant having a big closet full of clothes, bags, and shoes.

Ironically, starting a Masters in Fashion completely changed my perspective. Learning more about the environmental and social issues of the fashion industry was mind-blowing, and I’ve become more critical about everything I see, read, buy and do.

As I was sitting there, in class, researching about sustainability and mindful consumption for an essay, I got thinking: I’m reading all this stuff about people buying too much, but how am I consuming fashion? Where do most of my clothes come from? How often do I buy things? How much of it do I still wear?

And there I was, realising what I’d been doing all these years. Mindlessly buying stuff that I’d forgotten a week later. I always thought I was not “that” bad. I always did seasonal detoxes of my wardrobe, I had limited space, so I didn’t buy loads of clothes. But still. I was donating way too much each time, always making space to buy new. I always ended up imagining “I had nothing to wear” (does that sound familiar?) and feeling the mental burden of all that stuff pilling behind closed doors.

So I made the decision to buy nothing new. No time limit, I just wanted to see how long I “lasted”. I needed to fell back in love with what I owned, to rediscover my closet.

The rule was simple: I could only wear an item once in each category (t-shirts, sweaters, bottoms, dresses, outerwear). Once I’d finished the category, I would start again.

I divided my wardrobe into two distinct part: one for the items that I could wear, one for the ones I had already worn.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

All in all, it took me a good month and a half to go through all my wardrobe, and I’ve learnt a few things along the way:

1. I’ve never had “nothing to wear”: it took me more than a month to wear all my t-shirts, sweatshirts, jeans, shoes and coats, how is this “nothing”? I thought I had nothing because I’d been wired to think that way, because of brands, advertisements social media, … Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining I have too many clothes, and I am grateful and feel extremely lucky, but I have come up to realise that I definitely own more than I need.
2. Keeping stuff “just in case” is just BS: this month taught me the importance of listening to my guts and my feelings. When it comes to clothes, I either love them, or I don’t, there is no “just in case”.
3. I also learned to love what I have, be more adventurous with my style and “risk” combinations of items. I came out of this with a stronger sense of style and personality.
4. You don’t NEED to follow the trends: you can, if you want to, but there’s another way. You can find your own sense of style and creativity, buy items because you genuinely love them. And buy quality instead of quantity. And take care of your clothes goddammit, they’ll last much longer. Repairing, reusing and recycling helped me love my clothes more and change how I see my closet.

This “experiment” was super fun (apart from when I realised that I had almost gone through all my pants and only had my skirts left, in December) although I did cheat a couple of times (I wore twice the same yoga pants when I was home, shocking, I know).

Spoiler alert, I’ve bought new clothes since then. Rediscovering my wardrobe taught me to be more mindful about what I buy, so these new additions are the results of some thorough research and conscious decisions.

I love fashion, so this month helped me shift my mindset from “trend” to “style”.

If you’re looking to implement more mindful shopping habits, you might be interested by this article: 9 Tips for Mindful Shopping.

What about you? Do you feel like you “have nothing to wear”? Are you planning on changing your fashion habits?